Role Reprise / Live-Action Films

• DC Extended Universe:
  • Zack Snyder's Justice League: Ben Affleck, Jared Leto and Joe Manganiello returned as Batman, the Joker and Deathstroke respectively after not having taken part to any DCEU film since 2017's Justice League for Affleck and Manganiello and since 2016's Suicide Squad for Leto. They all parted ways with DC Films due to Creative Differences and constant direction changes, but Zack Snyder convinced them all to return to film a Bad Future scene in 2020 (while the rest of the film was shot in 2016).
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  • The upcoming The Flash film sees the return of Michael Keaton as Batman, a role he last played in 1992's Batman Returns, via multiverse crossover. Keaton will also return for the Batgirl Spin-Off. Ben Affleck also returns as the DCEU Batman in the same film after he seemingly dropped permanently from it after the Troubled Production of Justice League (2017). The film also features Michael Shannon as General Zod and Antje Traue as Faora, neither of whom has been seen alive since 2013's Man of Steel.
• James Bond:
  • Sean Connery left the role of Bond in the Eon Productions series in 1967 after You Only Live Twice. His replacement actor, George Lazenby, didn't last more than one film and Connery was brought back for Diamonds Are Forever in 1971 for a hefty sum (also counting as The Original Darrin). He then quit the series once and for all. He would return in the role however, in a rival production to Eon, Never Say Never Again, in 1983, the last time he played the role on film. Then, he reprised the role for the last time in any media in 2005, through voice acting in the video game 007: From Russia with Love.
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  • Desmond Llewelyn didn't show up in Live and Let Die (1973) two years after appearing in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), but returned in 1974 for The Man with the Golden Gun (and for all subsequent Bond films up to and including 1999's The World Is Not Enough).
  • For Licence to Kill (1989), producer Albert R. Broccoli wanted a previous Felix Leiter actor (the role had run on The Other Darrin up to this point), so David Hedison was brought back sixteen years after Live and Let Die.
  • Judi Dench (M) was the only regular cast member to be brought back from the Pierce Brosnan era into the Daniel Craig era, from Die Another Day (2002) to Casino Royale (2006), which was a Continuity Reboot, though technically she played two Ms, one for each era.
  • Both Léa Seydoux and Christoph Waltz from Spectre (2015) were brought back in No Time to Die (2021), which was unusual for both a Bond girl and a Bond villain respectively.
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  • In No Time to Die again, Jeffrey Wright reprised the role of Felix Leiter, which he hadn't played since 2008's Quantum of Solace, beating David Hedison's record of two times as Leiter.
• TRON:
  • Jeff Bridges reprising the role of Kevin Flynn in TRON: Legacy after more than 25 years.
  • Boxleitner started reprising his characters for that universe as early as 2003's TRON 2.0 (as Alan Bradley), and kept coming back (in TRON: Evolution, Kingdom Hearts II, TRON: Legacy and TRON: Uprising).
  • A variant with Cindy Morgan, who played Lora and Yori in the original. She came back in TRON 2.0, but it was as the Benevolent A.I. Ma3a. Lora Baines-Bradley was killed off in the Backstory. Turns out to be a double subversion - Ma3a is Lora, who was killed by her laser, but her consciousness was trapped inside the computer system, and compiled with the Math Assistant AI.
• Star Trek:
  • A major coup for the movies was getting all of the original series actors to play their characters. Various bit characters played by bit actors also appeared in the movies as well, such as Yeoman Rand and Lieutenant Kyle.
  • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan has Ricardo Montalbán reprise his role as the one-off villain Khan from the original series episode "Space Seed", filmed 15 years earlier.
  • Leonard Nimoy reprising Spock in Star Trek (2009), after not having played the character since 1991's Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. This is somewhat ironic, as he almost didn't show up in the original movies due to not being interested in playing Spock anymore. He ended up playing his character longer than anyone else.
  • The other returning role was Majel Barrett (who had previously returned as Christine Chapel — promoted from Nurse to Doctor — in the movies), as the ship computer voice - she had died the year prior, but most of her recordings were already done.
• In both 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2010: The Year We Make Contact, Keir Dullea plays Dr David Bowman, appearing to be the same age (it's a timey-wimey thing), even although they were made 16 years apart.
• Peter Cullen, the original voice of Optimus Prime, reprised his role in the live-action Transformers films, to much rejoicing.
  • While Frank Welker was replaced as Megatron in the films, Welker performed the role in the related material such as the video games. He eventually retakes the role properly as Galvatron, who is really Megatron Back from the Dead, in Transformers: Age of Extinction, and the very next film, Transformers: The Last Knight, has him reclaim his old name. Welker also reprises his role as Soundwave in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
• When Charlie's Angels (2000) was revived as a film two decades after the series ended, the same actor, John Forsythe, returned to play Charlie. Additionally, Jaclyn Smith returned as original Angel, Kelly Garrett, for a brief scene in the second film, 22 years after the fact.
• Quite a few Star Wars actors from the original movies showed up again for the prequels. Probably the most impressive example is Ian McDiarmid; having played the Emperor under heavy aging makeup in his mid-30s, he ended up being just about the right age to play the younger version with no makeup at all by the time the prequels rolled around.
  • Anthony Daniels also returned as C-3PO and Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca in Revenge of the Sith (he was also a direct consultant on his animated version seen in Star Wars: The Clone Wars). As a respect to the actor who portrayed the shakes and movements of R2-D2, Kenny Baker, they credited him in the prequels although by that time R2 was largely motorized or CG.
  • While something of an open secret long before it was announced, most of the major actors from the original trilogy whose characters hadn't been killed off (Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Peter Mayhew) returned for The Force Awakens. Also, Frank Oz returned as Yoda in The Last Jedi and Billy Dee Williams as Lando Calrissian in The Rise of Skywalker.
  • In the Italian dub of the extra scenes added in the various Special Editions, Darth Vader is the only one who kept the original voice actor.
  • Femi Taylor shot some new scenes as Oola, the Twi'lek dancer Jabba fed to a rancor, for the Special Edition of Return of the Jedi.
  • Rogue One featured the returns of Jimmy Smits as Bail Organa and Genevieve O'Reilly as Mon Mothma, making them the first two actors from the prequels to appear in the Disney-era films.^note Ewan McGregor had a voice cameo as the Force ghost of Obi-Wan in The Force Awakens, but did not appear in-person. Angus MacInnes, who played Gold Leader in A New Hope, recorded new dialogue for his character, which combined with unused footage from that film allowed his character to return for Rogue One's space battle. James Earl Jones also returned as the voice of Darth Vader.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe: Aside from the actors returning in various films throughout the franchise, there have been significant reappearances:
  • Captain America: Civil War had the return of William Hurt as Thunderbolt Ross, his first appearance as the character in 8 years since The Incredible Hulk ^note He did appear in the Marvel One-Shot The Consultant, but it used archive footage.
  • Captain Marvel has four actors reprising roles: Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury (last seen in Avengers: Age of Ultron in 2015 and The Stinger of Avengers: Infinity War in 2018), Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson (last seen on-screen in The Avengers, although he has played the character on TV since 2013), and Djimon Hounsou and Lee Pace as Korath the Pursuer and Ronan the Accuser, respectively (both last seen in Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014). The first two are also de-aged digitally given the movie is a Period Piece set in the 1990s (the other two are aliens and thus excused from looking the same).
  • Avengers: Endgame has Ty Simpkins return as Harley Keener, the Tagalong Kid from Iron Man 3, five years prior, attending Tony's funeral.
  • The mid-credits scene for Spider-Man: Far From Home has the surprise return of J. K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson, the role he previously played in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy.
  • Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings had Ben Kingsley return as Trevor Slattery, last seen in All Hail the King. Tim Roth also reprised his role from 2008's The Incredible Hulk by doing uncredited vocal work for the Abomination's cameo, even though the character doesn't really say anything intelligible.
  • Spider-Man: No Way Home includes several actors reprising their roles from the previous non-MCU Spidey movies. These actors include Willem Dafoe as Green Goblin, Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus and Thomas Haden Church as Sandman from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man Trilogy, as well as Rhys Ifans as the Lizard and Jamie Foxx as Electro from The Amazing Spider-Man Series. Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield also return as their respective iterations of Spider-Man in time for the third act, while Charlie Cox makes a cameo appearance as Matt Murdock, his character from Netflix's Daredevil series, and Tom Hardy reprises his role as Eddie Brock/Venom from Venom (2018) in The Stinger.
• Despite the length of time from the first to the fifth, Bruce Willis played John McClane of the New York Police Department in all the Die Hard movies.
• Harrison Ford plays the title character of Indiana Jones in the first three movies (1981, 1984 and 1989), and then reprised the role in the fourth movie from 2008. Karen Allen also reprised the role of Marion Ravenwood from the first movie.
• Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West in Beyond Re-Animator. Explaining in an interview that West had been in prison for 13 years, the interviewer asked Combs if he'd be wearing aging make up. The answer was no, he was actually 13 years older.
• The Halloween films:
  • Jamie Lee Curtis returned to reprise her role of Laurie Strode in Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later, 17 years after she last played the role in the two original films. She briefly returned again a few years later in Halloween: Resurrection (which she admits was only done to fulfill contract requirements). Now she's doing it for a fourth time in Halloween (2018).
  • Donald Pleasence reprised his role of Dr. Loomis for four sequels over the course of 18 years before he passed away and the character was killed off.
  • Nancy Stephens also returned to play Nurse Marion Chambers in H20 after previously playing the role in the original two films.
  • Nick Castle who played Michael Myers in the original film reprised his role 40 years later in Halloween (2018).
• Voice actor Chiharu Sawashiro is going to be in the live action SOARA movie, reprising his role as Nozomu from the anime and audio dramas.
• After George Lazenby's only role as James Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Sean Connery came back as James Bond for Diamonds Are Forever before Roger Moore took over in Live and Let Die. In 1983, Sean Connery came back as Bond in the unofficial James Bond film Never Say Never Again.
  • Speaking of Live and Let Die, that movie's Felix Leiter, David Hedison, returned 16 years later in Licence to Kill as a Continuity Nod (even if in the previous movie it was another actor).
  • When the series rebooted with Casino Royale (2006), replacing Pierce Brosnan's Bond and dropping Samantha Bond's Moneypenny and John Cleese's Q (both roles would be recast in Skyfall), Judi Dench stayed on as M.
• Nine years after the end of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Ian McKellen, Hugo Weaving, and Andy Serkis prominently reprise their roles as Gandalf, Elrond, and Gollum, respectively, in Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy. The films also insert Ian Holm as the elderly Bilbo Baggins as a Continuity Cameo (the younger Bilbo is played by Martin Freeman), and sneak in Elijah Wood (Frodo), Cate Blanchett (Galadriel), Christopher Lee (Saruman), and Orlando Bloom (Legolas) for a few Early Bird Cameos.
• When Lost in Space got a movie in 1998, they hired an all new cast to portray the roles of the Robinson Family, Major Don West, and Dr Zachary Smith. Dick Tufeld, however, would reprise his role of Robot for the movie.
• Paul Newman played "Fast Eddie" Felson in The Hustler and then 25 years later, reprised the role in The Color of Money.
• Though only for one song, only for a theatre skit, and in a lab coat instead of a corset, Tim Curry reprised his role as Dr. Frank-N-Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The song was "Sweet Transvestite", no less, and everyone loved it.
  • Curry played the same role in the original play. Richard O'Brien, Patricia Quinn, Meat Loaf and Nell Campbell also reprised their roles.
• In the Latin-American Spanish dub of the first live-action Flintstones movie, Arturo Mercado reprised his role as "Pedro Picapiedra" (Fred Flintstone; played here [on screen] by John Goodman). The Brazilian dub did something similar by bringing in the original Barney.
• In the Italian dub of the two Smurfs movies, Fabrizio Mazzotta, Marco Guadagno, Rossella Izzo and Paolo Buglioni reprise their roles as Clumsy Smurf, Brainy Smurf, Smurfette and Gargamel from the original cartoon.
  • In the European French dub, Gérard Hernandez reprised his role as Papa Smurf from the original cartoon^note although he didn’t reprise his role as Grouchy Smurf as well, being one of the few major voice actors who worked on that dub to be either still alive or not yet retired. However, Céline Monsarrat (the original French voice of Smurfette and the only other voice actor from that cartoon to still be active) didn’t reprise the role, instead being replaced by famous Quebecer singer Béatrice Martin AKA Coeur de pirate^note who would later be replaced by Marie-Eugénie Maréchal (another professional voice actress) for the sequel.
• Quite common for Brazilian dubs of a Live-Action Adaptation: most of the cast of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) and X-Men (even if the Wolverine fits the cartoon more than Hugh Jackman), He-Man and Skeletor in Masters of the Universe, Megatron and Starscream in Transformers... and in an animated-to-motion capture example, the Tintin from the TV cartoon was retained for the feature film.
  • While Disney's live action remakes in The New '10s usually got whole new casts, Aladdin (2019) had Márcio Simões back as the Genie (though he had to audition, even if not only he was the original Genie, but also dubs over Will Smith in most movies).
  • The DC Extended Universe brought back the animated voices of both Superman and Harley Quinn.
• Romy Schneider played Elisabeth of Austria in a trio of romantic films beginning with 1955's Sissi and then reprised her role as a much more serious and cynical Elisabeth in 1972's Ludwig playing her later on in life.
• Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa portrayed Shang Tsung in the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie. He reprises his role as the evil sorcerer in the web series Mortal Kombat: Legacy.
• Momoko Kochi played Emiko Yamane in the 1954 Gojira. She returned as Emiko in 1995's Godzilla vs. Destoroyah.
• Deadpool: Ryan Reynolds reprises the role of Wade Wilson/Deadpool five years after X-Men Origins: Wolverine despite being another continuity and the fact that his first portrayal of the character was very different from his comic book conterpart.
• Show Boat: The 1936 movie version reunited numerous principal and even secondary actors from the two Ziegfeld productions, including Helen Morgan as Julie in what turned out to be her last movie appearance.
• Jimmy Durante starred in the Hippodrome musical Billy Rose's Jumbo, and reprised his role in the movie version released 27 later.
• Liz Smith, who played Mrs. Dilber in A Christmas Carol (1984), reprised the role in the A Christmas Carol (1999).
• Alex Vincent, who played Andy Barclay in the first two Child's Play films, reprises the role in The Stinger of Curse of Chucky, twenty-three years later, and returned in Cult of Chucky, this time playing a main role.
• In the European French dub of the DC Extended Universe movies, Superman is voiced by Adrien Antoine, reprising his role from Superman Returns.
• Twenty years after Mrs Brown, Judi Dench reprises the role of Queen Victoria in Victoria & Abdul.
• James Earl Jones returns as the voice of Mufasa in the 2019 Live-Action Adaptation of The Lion King. Jones is notably the only surviving actor from the original film to be reprising his role, and is also the first actor to reprise their role in one of Disney's live-action remakes. Jones' return is due to being regarded by director Jon Favreau as iconic and irreplaceable in his role, and general sentiment is that Mufasa is Jones' other signature character besides Darth Vader himself.
• Annette Badland and Ian MacNeice played Mrs. and Mr. Fezziwig in A Christmas Carol (1999) and reprised it for The Man Who Invented Christmas.
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit has Mae Questel reprise her role as Betty Boop and this was about 50 years after her original theatrical cartoons had ended.
• Christopher Robin has Jim Cummings reprising his iconic roles of Winnie-the-Pooh and Tigger (though initial reports said that Chris O'Dowd would play the latter). Although not the official voice, Brad Garrett has provided Eeyore's voice in some side material. Much like James Earl Jones as Mufasa above, Jim Cummings was likely kept because his performances as Pooh and Tigger are that iconic (although Cumming voices are imitations of the original voice actors Sterling Holloway and Paul Winchell).
• Joanna Barnes, who played the dad's girlfriend Vicki in The Parent Trap, played the girlfriend's mother in the 37-years-later remake, also named Vicki. This implies the remake could actually be a sequel.
• An early draft of Deadpool 2 had Chris Evans reprise his role as Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch. One Upon a Deadpool (a PG-13 cut of the movie) also has an in-universe, enforced example: Fred Savage is forced by Deadpool to reprise his role as the grandson from The Princess Bride, which involves tying him up with tape to the bed.
  Deadpool: You were nicer as a kid!
• Kim Possible has Patton Oswalt reprise the role of Professor Dementor from the cartoon . Likewise, Nancy Cartwright reprises the role of Rufus.
• In The Producers remake, everyone but Ulla and Liebkind is the same actor from the stage adaptation.
• Danny DeVito had played Martini in the stage version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest before playing him in the movie.
• In the Argentinian Spanish dub of Hellboy (2019), Mario De Candia, who voiced the titular character in the second dubbed version of the 2004 film, reprises the role once again.
• The 2019 film Robert The Bruce has Angus Macfayden in the title role, 24 years after playing the part in Braveheart.
• After Michael Keaton appeared in Jackie Brown as DEA agent Ray Nicolette, Keaton reprised the role in an uncredited cameo in Out of Sight. Both films were adaptations of Elmore Leonard novels.
• Mark Hamill had voiced Chucky in an episode of Robot Chicken and then voiced him again in Child's Play (2019). Interestingly enough, he actually denies that he was chosen to voice Chucky because of Robot Chicken as he claimed to not even remember voicing Chucky.
• Colleen O'Shaughnessey reprises her role as the voice of Tails from the video games during The Stinger of Sonic the Hedgehog (2020). Initially, she wasn't credited in the theatrical version to prevent spoilers, but is credited in the home video release.
• Albert Dieudonné's most famous role was Napoleon Bonaparte in Abel Gance's 1927 movie, where he played Napoleon as a young man under the Revolution. In 1941, he reprised his role for Madame Sans-Gêne, set during the First Empire (save for a brief flashback under the Terror).
• Biloxi Blues has Matthew Broderick as Eugene, Penelope Ann Miller as Daisy and Matt Mulhern as Joseph in their same roles from the original stage play.
• Nigel Hawthorne reprised his role from The Madness of George III in The Madness of King George. In fact, his desire to do so actually led to him taking the role of Raymond Cocteau in Demolition Man just so he could prove he had screen presence — which he didn't need to, anyway, as the crew for The Madness of King George already wanted him to come back (and could've avoided a headache given Hawthorne admitted to hating working with Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes, going as far as to call Stallone "arrogant" and "rude").
• Inspector Gadget 2 features D.L. Hughley reprising his role as the voice of the Gadgetmobile. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal, as the two films were released only four years apart, but Hughley is the only actor from the 1999 film who returned for the sequel.
• A film and TV example: Yu In-chon played Yeonsan-gun of Joseon in the 1988 film The Diary of King Yeonsan. Eight years later he played Yeonsan-gun again in the series Im Kkeokjeong.
• For Kaamelott: Premier Volet, Alexandre Astier and most of the main cast of the series and then some came back ten years after the end of the latter.
• Haruka Fukuhara portrays Tsubame Koyasu in the second movie adaptation of Kaguya-sama: Love is War, having also been the voice of the character in the anime.
• Philippe Noiret played early 18th century French Regent Philippe d'Orléans in two unrelated films, Let Joy Reign Supreme (1975) and On Guard (1997).
• After starring in 1492: Conquest of Paradise, Gérard Depardieu reprised the role of Christopher Columbus in the comedy movie Alad'2 for a quick gag when Aladin and the genie are lost in the Americas thanks to the latter's Teleportation Misfires.
• In the 1972 adaptation of Ruslan and Ludmila, Prince Vladimir was played by Andrei Abrikosov, same actor who played him in Ilya Muromets 16 years earlier.

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