< Actor Allusion

Actor Allusion/Film

  • In Are We Done Yet, John C. Macginley's character was explaining about dangerous pathogens to the main characters.
  • In the 1999 movie The Phantom Menace, Liam Neeson played the role of Qui-Gon Jinn (a mentor who taught Obi-Wan to conquer fear, to be mindful of his surroundings, etc...) and in the 2005 movie Batman Begins, Liam Neeson played the role of Henri Ducard, (a mentor who taught Bruce to conquer fear, to be mindful of his surroundings, etc...) and it's easy for those familiar enough with Star Wars to feel reminded of Qui-Gon when watching Batman Begins scenes involving Ducard. One cannot help but suspect this was on purpose. Furthermore, the ninja training Ducard offers Bruce is also noticeably similar to jedi training as well, in involving strong self-discipline, careful stealth, refined swordfighting skills, etc... the difference between the two mentors becomes apparent later in Batman Begins, when it's revealed that Ducard is in fact Ra's al Ghul and is shown to be a genocidal Knight Templar, absolutely convinced that destroying all of Gotham was the right thing to to... contrast this with Qui-Gon, who (save for making it his dying wish for Obi-Wan to train Anakin) was portrayed primarily as having sound moral judgement.
  • A joke played once straight and once as its converse with Chow Yun-Fat; in Anna and the King, plays King Mongkut of Siam, who spent twenty years in a monastery before becoming king, and has since becoming king been... let's say, guaranteeing his bloodline. He says himself, he's been "making up for lost time." But later, as the Nameless Monk in Bulletproof Monk, this exchange occurs...

Kar: I'm not taking advice about women from a monk.
Nameless Monk: *smiling* I was not born a monk.

  • Bend It Like Beckham has a very short instance of this, when Juliette's mother explaining it's harder for female jocks to get boyfriends, saying "This is why Sporty Spice is the only one without a boyfriend." Melanie C (aka Sporty Spice), rewrote her song "Independence Day" so it could be in the film.
  • Arsenic and Old Lace shows Cary Grant's character sitting by a tombstone that bears the name Archie Leach, Grant's real name.
    • In the original run of the play the part of Jonathan Brewster, who had had so many cosmetic surgeries he "look[ed] like Boris Karloff," was played by Boris Karloff. He was unavailable for the film however, because he was still in the play on Broadway, so the part was played by Raymond Massey.
  • In a possibly unintentional one, in Australia David Wenham plays a completely evil bastard named Fletcher, just like in The Proposition.
  • The Film of the Book Bridget Jones Diary had Colin Firth cast as Mark Darcy, Bridget's Love Interest. The book was based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, whose romantic lead is Fitzwilliam Darcy (this itself is referenced in a line about how Bridget finds it ridiculous of Mark to be named Darcy and stand by himself at a party). Colin Firth played a particularly memorable Mr. Darcy in a 1996 BBC television adaptation of P & P. The character of Bridget Jones started in a column in The Independent and the Daily Telegraph, and when the adaptation was being broadcast she would often mention how much she fancied him. His casting in Bridget Jones's Diary was a HUGE Actor Allusion.
    • Also, the only male actors mentioned in the novel Bridget Jones's Diary are Colin Firth and Hugh Grant. Firth is Darcy, and Grant played Daniel Cleaver, Bridget's other Love Interest. Grant also starred in another Jane Austen dramatization, Sense and Sensibility.
  • In Brigada Explosiva: Mision Pirata, Emilio Disi's character asks a girl if she's heard of Brigada Z. When she says no, he asks: "What about Bañeros?". Disi and his co-star in the movie, Gino Renni, co-starred in the Bañeros trilogy.
  • There's an interesting example of what looks like an Actor Allusion but apparently isn't in Evolution with David Duchovny. When an alien threat appears, Duchovny's character advises against calling in the government, saying, "I've worked with those guys, you can't trust them" or words to that effect. This would appear to be an obvious reference to The X-Files. According to interviews with Duchovny and the director of the film, however, this line was not an allusion to The X-Files; the director had never seen the show. That, however, did not stop the studio's marketing department from making it appear that way in the movie's TV commercials.
  • Near the beginning of Flushed Away, Roddy (played by Hugh Jackman) is trying on different clothes. At one point, he tries a Wolverine costume, referencing Jackman's role as Wolverine in the X-Men movies.
  • In the 1940 screwball comedy His Girl Friday, Cary Grant delivers the line "Listen, the last man that said that to me was Archie Leach just a week before he cut his throat." (Archie Leach was Grant's real name.)
  • In Stardust, Ricky Gervais's character Ferdy the Fence tells Robert De Niro's character that "You're havin' a laugh." On Extras, Gervais plays an actor who plays a character on the Show Within a Show, and this character's Catch Phrase is "Are you havin' a laugh?" In one episode, he even wonders what DeNiro would think of his career.
  • In A Fish Called Wanda, Otto secretly betrays George to the police, then visits him in jail. He asks if George knows who sent him up, mentioning "Kevin Delaney" as a possible suspect. Otto is played by Kevin Delaney Kline.
    • George's full name in that movie is George Thomason. He is played by Tom Georgeson.
  • Speaking of which, in Fierce Creatures, Rollo briefly calls Willa "Wanda" by accident. Makes sense for a Spiritual Successor.
  • In How to Marry a Millionaire, Lauren Bacall's character is talking about men who married younger women: "Look at Roosevelt, look at Churchill, look at that old fella what's his name in The African Queen."
  • In The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Bilbo Baggins is played by Sir Ian Holm, who previously played Frodo Baggins in the BBC Radio adaptation of the book.
  • In The Rock:
  • Connery also replies "But of course you do!" to a mook who claims he has a black belt, in the film Rising Sun.
  • The American version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo had a very James Bond inspired title sequence. Fitting, since Michael Blomquist was played by Daniel Craig.
  • In the 1986 remake of Invaders From Mars, the police officer who was told that something strange was going on up at the sandpit (and mentioned he hadn't been up there since he'd been a boy) was played by the same actor who, in 1953, was the boy who'd seen something strange going on up at the sandpit.
  • The remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers has a couple:
    • At the start of the film, protagonist Donald Sutherland is startled by an old lunatic (played by Kevin McCarthy) running through traffic and screaming that they're coming. Kevin McCarthy had been the protagonist in the original film, who'd last been seen running through traffic screaming that they were coming at the end of that film.
    • Leonard Nimoy's character is replaced by an emotionless Podling.
  • Furthermore, there's Jeff Bridges in Iron Man. Even when he's playing weapons manufacturer Obadiah Stane, it's hard not to think of him as His Dudeness. The film very subtly acknowledges this when Stane speaks dismissively about hippies and then asks "Am I wrong?", which John Goodman repeatedly asks Bridges in Lebowski.

"You're not wrong; you're just an asshole."

    • A harder to catch one is when Pepper is at Obadiah's computer, and there are folders marked "Lebowski".
  • In Pirates of the Caribbean, Jack Sparrow's father is played by Keith Richards, which is a Shout-Out to Johnny Depp's quote about using him as inspiration for Jack's famous mannerisms.
    • Even better, Keith's scene features him playing guitar.
    • The fourth film features Gemma Ward as a character named Tamara. Out of the only four films Gemma has starred in thus far, one has been The Strangers, in which her character is introduced enigmatically asking if an unknown "Tamara" is in the house.
    • Also in the fourth film, Barbossa asks, "aren't we all kings' men?" Geoffrey Rush was fresh off his Oscar-nominated role as Lionel Logue in The King's Speech.
  • In Stay Tuned, John Ritter's character lands in the living room of an apartment that looks like the one his character in Three's Company lived in. Two women (lookalikes of Suzanne Somers and Joyce DeWitt) enter and ask in unison "WHERE have you been?". He does a pratfall over the sofa, as he frequently did on the series. This scene solely exists to be an Actor Allusion, since Ritter screams and immediately hits his remote control to go elsewhere.
  • It's probably easier to list the scenes in the 2007 adaptation of St Trinian's which don't nod to Colin Firth's previous career in some way. The dog is called Mr. Darcy. (In one scene, it starts humping his leg, and he later kicks it into a lawnmower.) The MacGuffin of the film is the painting Girl with a Pearl Earring. (At one point, a couple of Chavs remark, "Wow! I can see why Colin Firth wanted to shag her!") It all culminates in a scene where, after being thrown out of a window into a fountain after being caught in a girls' dorm room, he walks across a field with his shirt sopping wet and romantic piano music being played in the background in a spectacular Homage Shot of the famous Wet Sari Scene from the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
  • The Ocean's Trilogy has several:
    • In Ocean's Thirteen, as Rusty (Brad Pitt) bids goodbye to Danny (George Clooney), he tells him not to gain so much weight in between gigs next time - an allusion to Clooney packing on extra pounds for his role in Syriana. Danny responds by telling Rusty to settle down and have a couple of kids - a reference to Pitt's relationship with Angelina Jolie and their many adopted/biological children "acquired" in the short period of time between the films 2 and 3 (or Twelve and Thirteen depending on semantics).
    • All three films make references to Frank Sinatra either through dialogue or through his music. Frank Sinatra originated the role of Danny Ocean in the original Ocean's Eleven.
  • On the subject of Frank Sinatra, in the original Ocean's Eleven, he played a guy who runs a floating crap game. Sound familiar?
  • In the film The Marine, John Cena's relentless pursuit of the bad guys prompts one underling to remark that "This guy's like The Terminator!" The head bad guy, played by Robert "T-1000" Patrick, glances in the rear view mirror at the comment.
  • In Maverick:
    • The title character (played by Mel Gibson) is in a bank as it is held up by an unnamed bankrobber played by Danny Glover who starred alongside Gibson in the Lethal Weapon series of movies. Maverick acts as though he recognises the voice of the bank robber and pulls down his mask, leading the two of them to share a moment (as a portion of Lethal Weapon's main theme plays) before shaking their heads and walking away. As he makes his getaway, the unnamed bankrobber also mentions that he's "getting too old for this".
    • Further, the film features the father of Bret Maverick -- who, just coincidentally, happens to be played by none other than James Garner, who originated the role of Maverick on TV (and who in fact played Bret and Bart's "Pappy" in the Maverick episode of that same - he was often referenced on the show, but that was the only episode in which he was ever seen).
  • The film Hot Shots Part Deux features a particularly tangled Actor Allusion. Charlie Sheen, as Topper Harley, rides a boat through a swamp and in voice-over makes an entry in his journal, reciting dialogue that is almost identical to one of his monologues from Platoon. But he's distracted by another voice-over -- he looks up to see Martin Sheen, his real-life father, heading towards him in another boat while re-enacting one of his monologues from Apocalypse Now. To cap it off, the two notice each other, stand up, and as the boats speed past, give each other a thumb's-up and reference yet another movie, in which both Sheens appeared: "I loved you in Wall Street!"
  • In X-Men, Toad kicks Storm down an elevator shaft, then takes the pole that had been holding the elevator door open and twirls it like Darth Maul; both Toad and Darth Maul were played by Ray Park.
  • The Spaceballs parody of the Alien chestburster scene comes complete with John Hurt, who Hangs a Lampshade on it with the line, "Oh no, not again!"
  • Epic Movie has Kal Penn calling The White Bitch (Jennifer Coolidge) "Stifler's mom", then finding the White Castle she offers (insert shot of burger store) familiar: he was one of the eponymous characters in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle Go to White Castle (in Britain Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle Get the Munchies) (later, a soldier yells at him, "Take that, Kumar!")
    • Similar to the Kal Penn example, towards the beginning of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle Go to White Castle, an extreme sports punk who steals Harold's parking space shouts "Better luck tomorrow!" at Harold, in reference to John Cho's role as the antagonist in the eponymous film.
    • And towards the end of Epic Movie, they parody Superman Returns - which Kal Penn had a role in.
  • One of many good thing(s) about Meet the Spartans was when the Captain, played by Kevin Sorbo, said "Don't make me go Hercules on your ass!"
  • In Cannonball Run, Burt Reynolds' character considers driving a black Trans Am in the eponymous race, the same vehicle Reynolds famously drove in Smokey and the Bandit. He then comments "It's been done."
  • In Evan Almighty, the title character, while being carjacked by God, drives past a movie theater. It's showing The 40-Year-Old Virgin Mary. Minus the Mary, this was one of Steve Carell's movies.
  • In Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indy at one point declares, "I have a bad feeling about this," a line he previously uttered as Han Solo in Star Wars (and which would be a sort of Once an Episode occurrence in that film series; Solo was the second character to say it, in the trash compactor). Yoda Stories had an appearance by Indy too. Luke just says he looks familiar.
  • The Rock, Con Air, and Face Off are connected by a running gag around Nicolas Cage. In The Rock, Nicolas Cage explains to Sean Connery that he drives a beige Volvo. In Con Air, Nicholas Cage cuts Dave Chappelle's body loose from the plane, and it crashes onto a beige Volvo. In Face Off, Nicolas Cage escapes from the oil rig prison and steals a beige Volvo.
  • Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger have had a friendly rivalry for years, and many of their movies have in-jokes about the other:
  • In The 6th Day, Arnold tells a man to "Get Out!" of his truck - just like he did on the first Terminator with a tanker.
  • In TerminatorSalvation, the bodybuilder playing the T-800 (physically, that is), Roland Kickinger, had previously played Arnold in the made-for-TV biopic See Arnold Run.
  • Arnold's turn as a lecherous Turkish Prince in Around the World in Eighty Days was unfortunately timed, as allegations of his sexually inappropriate conduct towards female colleagues were brought to the fore as he ran for governor.
    • The same film had Orville and Wilbur Wright played by real-life brothers Owen and Luke Wilson. Owen's presence is also debatably a nod to the Shanghai Noon series of films, which starred himself and Jackie Chan (one of the stars of Around the World).
  • Richard Petty voiced one of the Cars, named The King (a Shout-Out to his Fan Nickname). It's a Plymouth Superbird with a #43 on it (his most famous car), and on one race, it even crashes in a frame by frame recreation of his famous 1988 Daytona 500 crash.
    • Mrs. The King, voiced by Petty's Real Life wife, is depicted as the same car she used to drive to his early races, before he became famous.
    • Similarly, two cars in the film are voiced by Tom and Ray Magliozzi, hosts of the radio show Car Talk. At one point the film, they say "Don't drive like my brother!" "And don't drive like my brother!", their Catch Phrase on the show.
    • Mater, who is voiced by Larry the Cable Guy, uses Larry's catchphrase "Git 'er done!" near the end.
  • In the movie version of Starship Troopers, Michael Ironside is seen to be impressed by the fact that Neil Patrick Harris is going to be a spy with Psychic Powers. Ironside was the head a sploding villain in Scanners, so he knows what it's like to be psychic. And now he knows what it's like to be a spy.
  • In Hot Fuzz, Edward Woodward is one of the villagers in the Town with a Dark Secret. Woodward investigated such a town in The Wicker Man. Similiarly, one character is said to have been an extra in Straw Dogs. And then he gets wounded with a beartrap in reference to that movie's most famous death scene.
    • Not exactly. The character who was an extra in Straw Dogs was shot outside, while the bear trap incident takes place inside the bar.
  • In the 2003 Hulk film, Lou Ferrigno played a security guard (alongside Hulk's creator Stan Lee), and in The Incredible Hulk (the 2008 movie starring Edward Norton), he voiced the Hulk (as well as playing another security guard). Ferrigno played the Hulk in the 1978-'82 live-action TV series.
    • In the 2008 movie, Edward Norton watches the Brazilian version of The Courtship of Eddie's Father, which starred Bill Bixby, who played David Bruce Banner in the Hulk live action TV series. The kindly owner of the pizza parlor is played by Paul Soles, who voiced the Hulk in the '60s cartoon.
  • The Tim "Buzz Lightyear" Allen remake of The Shaggy Dog has the eponymous dog jump off a bridge on to a bus, with Allen saying "To infinity and beyond!"
    • Also in The Santa Clause 2 Santa (Tim Allen) encountered a plastic duplicate of Santa who believes himself to be the real thing. While combating one another the plastic Santa calls him a "Sad, strange little man."
  • In the 2004 Punisher movie, Frank's old cop buddies are trying to calm him down by saying they understand that he's upset. He responds, in part, "I used to get upset when the Yankees won the Series." This is both a Shout-Out to the original Punisher, where Frank Castle was always depicted as a New Yorker. And its an Actor Allusion about the actor, Thomas Jane, whose biggest role prior was playing Mickey Mantle of the Yankees in 61*
  • Kung Pow has Mufasa from The Lion King, played by James Earl Jones, signing off with one of James's taglines: "This is CNN".
  • There are at least two Shannen Doherty in-jokes in Mallrats: in one scene, Doherty's character Rene is called "Brenda" by mistake (her character in 90210). Ben Affleck's character's name, Shannon Hamilton, is a veiled reference to Doherty's previous marriage to Ashley Hamilton.
  • In The Naked Gun 2½, actor Lloyd Bochner has a small role as a member of a consortium of villains. Towards the end of the film, there's a hysterical crowd scene which features a split-second shot of him holding a large book entitled "To Serve Man", yelling "It's a cookbook!!" This is a reference to a famous episode of the original Twilight Zone TV series which Bochner starred in.
    • The climax of Naked Gun 33 1/3 occurs at the Academy Awards, complete with a number of celebrities showing up as usual. Two of them are "Weird Al" Yankovic and Vanna White. Frank and Jane tie them up with lights and drag them into the bushes, leaving a small but notable number of viewers wondering why they weren't stuffed into a closet instead.
  • The first scene of Tango and Cash has Tango saying "Rambo is a pussy." Guess who plays Tango.
  • [[The Freshman (1990 film)|The Freshman is all about this trope. Marlon Brando plays a powerful, shadowy, charismatic crime boss whose resemblance to Don Vito Corleone is remarked on by all the other characters. Matthew Broderick's character tells Marlon Brando's, "You know, you look an awful lot like The Godfather." The problem was that Marlon Brando tripled his body mass between movies, so he didn't really look that much like he did in The Godfather.
  • Fanboys has several, including, but not necessarily limited to; Ray "Darth Maul" Park doing some of the acrobatics from his Star Wars role, and Carrie "Princess Leia" Fisher responding with "I know" to "I love you".
  • Mark Hamill's appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is immediately followed by the message "Hey Kids it's Mark Hamill! (Applause!)" referring to his role as the voice of the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series. Also when Jay cuts off his hand during a "bongsaber" fight, he looked at the camera and moaned "Not again."
    • "Don't fuck with the Jedi Master, son." Which became "Don't mess with the Mandos, mate." The way Star Wars fandom interacts with the EU is a very complicated dance.
  • Another Fisher example occurs in The Blues Brothers; when her character shoots off a bazooka, the sound effect is the same as the blasters in the Star Wars films.
  • Danny Trejo almost constantly plays a character whose name is a type of knife (or the Spanish word for one), in particular, he is well known for his part in one of the 'trailers' shown during Grindhouse, in which he plays a character named Machete (now a real movie). Interestingly enough, Trejo played a character by the same name in another one of Robert Rodriguez's movies: Spy Kids. There is much debate over whether they are the same character.
    • According to IMDB, his surname is Cortez.
      • It's funny cause Cortez sounds almost like cortes, which means "Cuts" in spanish, keeping with the whole Sharp implements theme.
  • In Chúmbale, the dad is watching Enrique Pinti on TV and bursts out in laughter, saying "I Love this guy!". The dad is played by Enrique Pinti.
  • In the remake of Shaft, John Shaft's uncle is none other than the original John Shaft, Richard Roundtree.
    • That's literally. Samuel L. Jackson's character is in fact the nephew of John Shaft from the original films.
  • In Speed Racer, the oldest race announcer is played by Peter Fernandez, who voiced Speed Racer and Racer X in the original cartoon.
  • In The Saint, Simon Templar's car is voiced by Roger Moore, who played Simon Templar in the TV series.
  • One of the older actresses from the Black Christmas remake starred in the original movie.
    • AKA SCTV's Andrea Martin.
  • John Larroquette narrates the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the remake.
  • Danielle Harris, who played Laurie Strode's daughter Jamie Lloyd in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, appears in the Halloween remake and its sequel as Annie Brackett, Laurie's best friend.
  • In the latest Get Smart movie, Smart is almost run over by a man with a peculiar accent while trying to hitchhike. That man is Bernie Kopell, the villain Siegfried in the original series.
  • The mockumentary Waiting for Guffman includes an in-character Actor Allusion. Fred Willard plays the town travel agent, and one of his roles in the Show Within a Show is President McKinley.

McKinley: "I was headed for Wichita, but somehow I ended up here in Blaine. Guess I need a new travel agent!" * turns to the crowd and winks*

  • During a tense scene in the remake of Sleuth Jude Law (playing opposite Michael Caine in the role Caine played in the original) asks "What's it all about?" Caine and Law had assailed the eponymous roles in Alfie and its remake.
  • In the Star Wars prequels (specifically the second movie, and a bit of the third), Christopher Lee plays an evil count whose name starts with a D. With unnatural dark powers. (Lee has played Dracula in no fewer than ten movies, according to his IMDB profile. Plus one "Count Drago.")
    • In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Lee's character Saruman (another villainous magic-user, not a count though) dies by being impaled on a wooden pole. This did not happen in the book.
    • There's also Lee's performance as Willy Wonka's father in Charlie and The Chocolate Factory.
  • Twenty-Four-Hour Party People, which chronicles the rise and fall of Manchester's Factory Records (which featured Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays, A Certain Ratio, and many others), makes frequent use of this. Several times throughout the film actual people who were involved with Factory make brief cameos as janitors, bartenders, etc, sometimes interacting with the actors portraying them. At one point in the movie Steve Coogan (narrating as Factory founder Tony Wilson) points out to the audience that there have been these cameos all along. Additionally, Howard Devoto of The Buzzcocks refutes the veracity of a scene in which he is portrayed (wherein he has sex with Tony's wife) saying "I definitely don't remember this happening."
  • In Kill Bill, Elle Driver's fate is left ambiguous as the last we see of her is her trashing around wildly on the floor and screaming after getting her other eye ripped out. Actress Darryl Hannah reacts the same way to getting shot in Blade Runner.
    • Also, Bill tells The Bride the legend of Pai Mei before he sends her to train with him. The story is a word-for-word recounting of the backstory of David Carradine's character from the Kung Fu TV series.
  • Derek Jacobi as King Claudius in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet; he had previously appeared in I, Claudius. He also appeared in the BBC Television Shakespeare adaption of the play as Hamlet himself.
  • Mel Gibson's introduction in Chicken Run is accompanied by him yelling "FREEEEEDOMMMMMMMM"!!
    • Also, when he says that he hails from the land of the free, one chicken asks expectantly: "Scotland?"
    • When he later becomes unpopular with the hens, one of them mentions: "I doubt he even was an American.", referencing the fact that Mel Gibson is believed by many to be Australian.
    • He is partly Australian, but very bitter about it.
  • A director one, which doubles as a Take That: the opening scene of Scream features Drew Barrymore saying of the Nightmare On Elm Street series "The first one was good, the rest sucked." Scream director Wes Craven had directed the horror classic, with the studio later making lots of sequels without his involvement.
    • Well, he did write Part 3, The Dream Warriors. And directed New Nightmare.
    • Craven has a Creator Cameo as a janitor named "Fred", who is wearing a fedora and a red & green sweater.
  • The 2001 Planet of the Apes features cameos from the stars of the original, Charlton Heston (protagonist Taylor), becomes... the "damned dirty" ape father of the villain, with the added bonus of his last words being "Damn them! God damn them all to hell!") and Linda Harrison (the Nubile Savage Nova), turned into an unnamed human captive).
  • Dracula 2000. A famous television reporter turned vampire asks, pinning down the male lead, "Ever wanted to fuck a TV star?" The reporter was played by Jeri Ryan, famous for playing Ms. Fanservice Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Voyager.
    • In addition, she divorced her ex-husband after he tried to take her to a wife swapping club...so someone else could do just that...
  • In the Made for TV Movie, High School USA, the Jerk Jock (Jerk Prep, actually) gives the Eddie Haskell treatment to Eddie Haskell himself. Ken Osmond (the actor who played Eddie Haskell) played the father of the girl that that the Jerk Prep was dating.
  • In Crank: High Voltage, one of the characters mentions that Chev Chelios looks a lot like "that guy from The Transporter movies". Chev and "that guy" are both played by Jason Statham.
  • Near the end of Fred Claus, the antagonist of the film, played by Kevin Spacey, is given a Superman cape by Santa Claus. Kevin Spacey recently played Lex Luthor in Superman Returns
  • In Sex and the Single Girl (1964), Tony Curtis's character has to wear a woman's robe, because his clothes are wet. He says he looks like "Jack Lemmon did, in that movie, where he dressed up like a girl." Later, he's several times said to be looking like Lemmon.
  • In Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three, Red Buttons appears as an MP who does a "You dirty rat" impression to the face of CR MacNamara ... played by James Cagney.
  • In Mystery Men, Ricky Jay says, "I'm not a magician!" -- which the actor is in real life. He also played a magician in The Prestige.
    • In Tomorrow Never Dies, Ricky Jay's character was to have used throwing cards as weapons, but the scenes were ultimately cut from the film. Ricky Jay is an expert card thrower and was consulted by the MythBusters on the subject too.
  • Hell is for Heroes is for the most part a gritty World War II action film ... except for a brief sequence in which comedian Bob Newhart, at the time best known for his one-sided telephone conversation comedy routines, appears as a GI. After the Americans discover a German bug in their camp, Newhart's character is forced to improvise a one-sided telephone conversation making it seem like the Americans are in a better position than they actually are.
  • A rather painful one in Steel, where Richard Roundtree's character says of the hero's trademark giant hammer "I especially like the Shaft!" apropos of absolutely nothing.
  • Possible example in Best in Show: Fred Willard's character says of Catherine O'Hara's "That handler looks familiar to me." It works in the film itself as part of the Running Gag that O'Hara and her husband keep running into her old boyfriends, but also references that she and Willard played a couple in Waiting for Guffman.
  • In Mr. Skeffington Bette Davis play an older woman, complete with make-up and all, who believes she is still young and acts accordingly. When a doctor implies that she is indeed not young anymore she asks if he thinks she is old and ugly. He answers something to the effect of: "Well, you're no Greta Garbo". The two of them had sort of a friendly rivalry going, not unlike Schwarzenegger/Stallone.
  • Michael Biehn has been bitten on the arm in every James Cameron movie he's been in - The Abyss, Aliens, and The Terminator.
  • In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indy correctly identifies the Holy Grail, saying, "This is the cup of a carpenter." Harrison Ford worked as a carpenter early in his career.
    • Erhm, this one might be more an allusion to Jesus being the son of a carpenter.
      • Or, you know, both.
  • In Death Proof, Abby, Rosario Dawson's character, tells her friends that her boyfriend fucked Darryl Hannah's stand-in. Zoe Bell, one of the friends, was Uma Thurman's stand-in in Kill Bill, wherein Thurman at one point fights Hannah.
    • Earlier, in the bar where Stuntman Mike meets the first group of girls, Jack Burton's shirt is in a frame on the wall.
    • Stuntman Mike has a scar over one eye, on the same side as the eyepatch in Escape from New York.
  • There's a memorable instance of this the otherwise forgettable film Stakeout: To pass the time while on stakeout, Emilio Estevez and Richard Dreyfuss's characters are playing a guessing game where they cite memorable lines of dialogue and quiz the other as to what movie it's from. Emilio Estevez's character, in an over-the-top way, recounts the line: "This was not a boating accident!" Dreyfuss, after a moment's pause, replies "I don't know." The line is from the film Jaws, spoken by Matt Hooper ? a character played by Richard Dreyfuss.
  • In The Men Who Stare at Goats, the story revolves around a secret US military program called the "Jedi Program" that attempted to train soldiers with superpowers. The main character? Played by Ewan McGregor, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequels.
  • In the final dance scene in Dirty Dancing, Baby's mother says proudly of her daughter's dancing abilities, "She gets it from me!" Baby's mother is played by Kelly Bishop, who was in the original production of A Chorus Line and is a pretty accomplished dancer.
  • In one of the Look Who's Talking movies, Kirstie Alley's character is reduced to working as an elf in a mall Santa display, sporting a gigantic pair of pointed ears. When some kids ask what she's supposed to be, she snarls "I'm a Vulcan! Wanna see my death grip?" Alley's first movie role was playing the Vulcan Saavik in Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan
  • In the "blinkandyoullmissit" category, Jeff Goldblum's performances in Jurassic Park and Independence Day both use the line "Must go faster" during chase scenes.
  • In Living in Oblivion Steve Buscemi plays Nick Reve, an independent film director. At one point in the movie his lead actor storms off, shouting that he'd only wanted to work with Nick because he'd "heard he was tight with Quentin Tarentino!"
  • An incredibly blatant one in Airplane! II: The Sequel where Cdr. Buck Murdock looks into a periscope. The first shot shows the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek: The Original Series, followed by a reaction shot, and then what the character was really seeing. Buck Murdock is played by William Shatner.
    • Earlier in the same film there's a scene where air traffic controller Steve McCroskey (played by Lloyd Bridges) is shown residing in a nursing home. A nurse explains that he's gone senile and "thinks he's Lloyd Bridges," and we see him donning a scuba mask (an allusion to Bridges' role on the '50s TV show Sea Hunt).
  • Coy example: in Batman, Jack Nicholson's plastic surgeon uses an assortment of crude, rusty tools to reconstruct his wounded face as the Joker. At least one of these implements closely resembles one used by the evil dentist in the remake of Little Shop of Horrors. Who'd appeared in the original The Little Shop of Horrors, as a masochistic client of this evil dentist? Jack Nicholson.
  • In Alvinandthe Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, Alvin, voiced by Justin Long, says he must "remember the five D's of dodgeball: dodge, duck, dip, dive, dodge." A line from his previous film, Dodgeball.
  • An odd case occurs in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Kristen Bell plays the title character, an actress, and at one point, other characters mock her for a bad movie she was in, in which she was attacked by a killer cell phone. The writers insist that they wrote the line not knowing that Kristen Bell actually was in a movie, Pulse, about a killer cell phone.
  • Combined with a Parental Bonus in Monsters, Inc., when the character voiced by Steve Buscemi threatens to put another character through the shredder.
  • In Uwe Boll's Alone in The Dark film, a character falls to his death in a spiky pit trap. The actor portraying him was Ho Sung Pak, who portrayed Liu Kang in the first two Mortal Kombat games, where characters could also meet such a fate.
  • In The Great White Hype, Samuel L. Jackson's character of "The Sultan" greets a well-dressed white man with long black hair with "Vincent, Vincent, where's Jules, man?", referring to Vincent Vega (played by John Travolta) and Jackson's own character Jules Winnfield, from Tarantino's Pulp Fiction.
    • Similarly, the trailers for the new John Travolta movie From Paris with Love include Travolta's character singing the praises of Royale with cheese.
      • The same film has a writer allusion. Early on, Travolta's character uses the Bond One-Liner "Wax on, Wax off". Co-writer and producer Luc Besson often works with Robert Mark Kamen, who wrote The Karate Kid which originated that line.
  • In The Muppet Movie, Mel Brooks' character wears a lab coat with "PROF" on the back - a nod to his role as Governor Le Petomane ("GOV") in Blazing Saddles.
  • David Boreanas' character in Valentine is a drunk who breaks his sobriety. One of the characters even say that "he's no Angel".
  • In Valentine's Day, Taylor Lautner's character says he's uncomfortable taking his shirt off, a swipe at Lautner's Shirtless Scene-prone role in the Twilight films.
    • Julia Roberts' character is asked if she's ever been to El Rodeo Drive. She smirks and says yes.
  • At the end of The Real Howard Spitz, the eponymous protagonist (played by Kelsey Grammer) considers becoming a sitcom writer. When his friend points out he knows nothing about it, Spitz replies "Writing a sitcom's not hard. You just have a married couple, a bar in Boston or a psychiatrist on the radio."
  • During a Good Cop, Bad Cop sequence in the buddy cop film Cop Out (starring Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis), Tracy Morgan is interrogating the suspect by acting like a gun-waving maniac and spewing random movie lines. When Tracy says Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!, Bruce Willis's (who starred in the Die Hard films) character says "I've never seen that movie before."
  • In Last Action Hero, Daniel points out that F. Murray Abraham is playing Jack's old buddy, but he was the traitor Salieri in Amadeus so he shouldn't be trusted. He's correct, and the character later makes a Face Heel Turn.
  • Lynda Carter's line in the movie Sky High, "I'm not Wonder Woman, you know." Lynda Carter played Wonder Woman in the TV series.
  • One scene in Scotland, PA sees police Lt. McDuff pick up some maracas and spontaneously dance a few steps, explaining, "You know, I used to be a dancer." Said character is played by dancer-turned-actor Christopher Walken.
  • When the stalker Fireball first enters the combat zone in the movie The Running Man, Killian announces his arrival to the TV audience by declaring, "There he goes, the number one rusher!" Fireball is played by football player-turned-actor Jim Brown, who is widely considered the greatest running back in NFL history.
  • In The Three Stooges short Crash Goes the Hash, the butler (Bud Jamison) responds indignantly to the boys' antics by saying, "Such levity; you remind me of the Three Stooges!" Curly takes exception to the comment.
  • The well known Jackie Chan movie Drunken Master has him playing a Drunken Boxing expert. He also plays a Drunken Boxing expert in his American film, The Forbidden Kingdom. Shanghai Noon was supposedly going to feature a Drunken Master fighting sequence too but Hollywood knows they're not good enough for cool fight scenes...Jackie does get drunk at one point, however, if that's good enough.
  • In Inception, the song that is played to wake everyone up is Edith Piaf's "Non, je ne regrette rien". Marion Cotillard (Mal) played Piaf in the biopic La Vie En Rose and won an Oscar for it. Also, the song title translates to "I have no regrets." This was apparently coincidental, the song was chosen before Cotillard was cast, and the director didn't realize the connection until it was too late to change the score.
    • She also beat Ellen Page for the Oscar that year. In the film, the two don't get along.
    • Crossing over with Wrestler in All of Us and Fridge Brilliance. At one point, Arthur locks a hostile projection in a hold known as the Cobra Clutch. The move was used (and named after) Sgt. Slaughter, a wrestler who was also a character in GI Joe. Levitt portrayed Cobra Commander in the GI Joe movie.
  • In The Princess Diaries 2, at the sleepover, Queen Clarisse says to Mia, "I've done quite a lot of flying in my time." This is referring to her part in Mary Poppins.
  • In the newer The Longest Yard with Adam Sandler, Burt Reynolds plays the protagonist's mentor in prison. Reynolds played Sandler's role in the original installment.
    • Burt Reynolds' character asks Adam Sandler, "How'd they get you to go to Florida State?" Burt Reynolds attended Florida State University on a football scholarship.
  • The Vincent Price vehicle Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine has more than one; when Goldfoot shows off his family portrait gallery, all of his ancestors are images of Price from previous movies. Soon after, Frankie Avalon's character discovers his fellow Beach Party stars Annette Funicello and Harvey Lembeck locked up in Goldfoot's dungeon.
  • In The Incredibles, Frozone's scene with the cop and getting the drink of water is a direct homage to Samuel L Jackson's scene as Zeus in Die Hard With a Vengeance, in which a cop is about to shoot him but he needs to answer a pay phone.
    • Also, when Mr. Incredible encounters Buddy Pine, the future Syndrome, he initially guesses his name is Brody. Jason Lee, who plays Syndrome/Buddy, starred as Brody Bruce in Mallrats.
  • At one point in The Mask, there is a photo of police lieutenant Kellaway's wife. The woman is actress Verna Bloom, as she appeared in Animal House, in which Kellaway's actor Peter Riegert starred.
  • There's a lot of this in the Mockumentary Comic Book The Movie due to its large cast of voice actors in live action roles, as well as several actors, directors and comic creators as themselves. Leo Matuzik staring at a poster of Fry stands out as one of the funniest.
    • Then there's Don Swan's short conversation with Ms. Q in the studio office. Swan is played by Mark Hamill, and Ms. Q is played by Arleen Sorkin. They portrayed Joker and Harley Quinn in Batman: The Animated Series.
  • In Suck (2009), after Joey and Jennifer have given up vampirism and rock stardom for a mundane suburban life, they run into the bartender from earlier in the movie, a vampire played by Alice Cooper. When he unfurls his wings, Jennifer says "Tell me I'm dreaming", to which he replies, in reference to their boring life, "Welcome to my nightmare". In another scene, when the band is crossing the border into America, the border guard is suspicious and hostile until they mention they're in a band, and he says he used to be in a band too. The guard is played by Alex Lifeson of Rush.
  • In Dreamscape, George Wendt, who is most famous for his role of "Norm" from Cheers, plays an author who believes he's uncovered a government conspiracy. His character meets the protagonist in a bar.
  • Be Cool: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's pro-wrestling persona is playfully referenced in a discussion about his character, a gay bodyguard who dreams of getting his big break as an actor.

Linda Moon: "He can raise just one eyebrow at a time... and that's all he thinks it takes to be an actor."

  • In the intro for The Alphabet Killer, the protagonist (played by Eliza Dushku) laments how the people she most wants to talk to are dead. This could be an allusion to Tru Calling, in which one of Eliza's previous characters (the eponymous Tru), could indeed talk to the dead.
  • In Enemy of the State, Gene Hackman plays a character who seems like an aged version of his character from The Conversation. When the baddies bring up a file photo of Hackman's character when he was younger, it is of Hackman as he appeared in The Conversation.
  • In Back to The Future Part III, Mary Steenbergen stars as Clara Clayton, a woman who falls in love with a time-traveller (Doc Brown). Steenbergen had also starred as such a character in Time After Time.
  • In An American Haunting, Sissy Spacek plays the mother of a teenaged girl named Betsy Bell who is constantly plagued by supernatural events... something Spacek should be quite familiar with, given that her most famous role was the eponymous telekinetic teen in Carrie. The comparison becomes even more apt when it's revealed that the source of the ghostly attacks was Betsy herself, manifesting the Bell Witch to protect herself from her sexually abusive father.
  • In Avatar, Grace Augustine - played by Stanford alumna Sigourney Weaver - sometimes wears a Na'vi-size Stanford tank top on her avatar body.
  • In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, a promotional poster for Equus appears on the wall of a cafe that the Power Trio ends up in, referencing Daniel Radcliffe's controversial decision to take on more mature fare while the Potter series was still running. Apparently, it was his idea to put it there.
    • The actor who briefly played young Grindelwald in Deathly Hallows was the same as an actor who has played Dorian Gray. The comparison is apt, as others have noticed.
    • In The Sorcerer's Stone, John Hurt's character has a similar costume to the Storyteller.
  • In RED (film), Bruce Willis' character proclaims a lock to be "Unbreakable". Also, John Malkovich's character remarks "I remember when the Secret Service used to be tougher", referencing his role in In the Line of Fire.
  • In the B-movie, Gryphon, one of Jonathan LaPaglia's lines is "Seven Days," spoken in such a way that it must have been intentional.
  • In A Carol Christmas, the ghost of Christmas Present is played by William Shatner and the way that he transports Carol to different places looks like teleportation in Star Trek.
  • Again with His Dudeness in Tron: Legacy. Mellowed-out old Kevin Flynn is very reminiscent of The Dude in that he's all about zen, man.
  • In Cedar Rapids, Isiah Whitlock Jr. quotes Omar from The Wire. "And I keeps one in the chamber in case you ponderin'." On The Wire itself, Isiah plays Senator Clay Davis.
  • Unintentional example in The Book of Eli: Gary Oldman plays a character who, despite the difference in setting and time period, has certain similarities to his character in The Fifth Element: a smarmy corporate villain with a slight Southern accent who's obsessed with finding a certain artifact and, on multiple occasions, appears to have the artifact in his possession. It's already pretty funny in The Fifth Element when he repeatedly opens the case only to find that it's empty, but it transforms into something of a Running Gag when in The Book Of Eli, he finally obtains the similarly leather-bound, locked Bible and opens it, only to discover that it's in Braille. Could also be a Hilarious in Hindsight depending on when you're watching each movie.
  • It could be accidental, but in The Colour of Magic, The Film of the Book, Sean Astin, who plays Twoflower, says "potatoes" to Rincewind in a way that sounds just like a certain scene from The Lord of the Rings, where he was Sam.
  • In the movie Kelly's Heroes, Clint Eastwood has a standoff against a tank. The scene is shot like a Spaghetti Western, and has the theme from one of the Clint Eastwood Westerns.
  • Ramona and Beezus has several shout outs at Selena Gomez's expense. As Ramona is getting ready for her pictures, Beezus is styling Ramona's hair with a curling iron. Beezus points out to her that "That's a curling iron, not a magic wand." Earlier in the scene, the father states that, "TV kids make millions" as Beezus is shown to be smiling in the background. A later scene has Beezus telling Ramona "Every princess needs a little sparkle," which could be a reference to either Princess Protection Program or Another Cinderella Story.
  • In Three Amigos, Steve Martin's character (Lucky Day), has to recite a magic phrase consisting of gibberish. The last two syllables are "Hoff-HARR", which is how you pronounce the last name of Steve Martin's character in The Man With Two Brains.
  • Robert Downey, Jr.'s character in A Scanner Darkly tried to make a homemade silencer only to make the gun louder. Sherlock Holmes while bored and drunk tried to make the first silencer with the same results.
  • In Captain Ron, the titular character, played by Kurt Russell, wears an eyepatch to cover up an ill-fitting Glass Eye. Kurt Russell with an eyepatch? Sounds familiar...
  • Counts as Self-Deprecation: during the credits of Rock Star, Mark Wahlberg's character says he'll leave rock and move into rap... while "Good Vibrations", by Marky Mark, is playing in the background.
  • A strange, predictive example: in Forrest Gump, Lt. Dan (Gary Sinese) tells Forrest (Tom Hanks), "The day you're a shrimp boat captain, I'll be an astronaut!" This was a reference to the original book, in which Forrest became an astronaut, but the next time those two actors were in a film together it was Apollo 13, where, indeed, Sinese played an astronaut.
  • In 1988's Working Girl, corporate executive Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver) steps off a helicopter carrying a giant stuffed gorilla. Earlier in 1988, Weaver starred in Gorillas in The Mist.
  • In the Apocalypse film series movie Revelation, Jeff Fahey's character Thorold Stone enters an ultra-realistic virtual reality simulation of a beach...guess which movie he starred in where he also entered a virtual reality program?.
    • Interesting contrast is that one of Fahey's characters claims to be God and the other is claiming that he isn't looking for God.
  • In Mulholland Drive, the transition from dream world to the real world is marked by the Cowboy telling Naomi Watts' character, "Come on now, pretty girl, time to wake up". In I Heart Huckabees, her character is replaced in her spokesmodel job by Isla Fisher after having a philosophical revelation. Trying to make Fisher aware of what she's seen, Watts puts her in a headlock and says, "Wake up, pretty girl!"
  • In Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, Natalie Portman plays the stepmom of a precocious eight-year-old, as he considers his future education options. When he brings up Harvard, Portman's character Emilia blurts "Harvard sucks!" No prizes for guessing which university is Natalie's alma mater.
  • Antonio Banderas is well known for his role as the masked caped crusader Zorro as well as the cheesy line "you are the love of my life" which Puss in Boots (who Banderas voices) repeats to a female cat just before getting on the boat in Shrek the Third.
  • In the original 13 Ghosts, the house comes complete with a creepy old maid who happens to be played by Margaret Hamilton, at the very end of the film she picks up a broom to resume her house work, but instead gives the camera a devious look while she holds it, reflecting her best known role as the Wicked Witch of the West.
  • In Brewster McCloud, Margaret Hamilton plays Daphne Heap, who is murdered early on. When the camera pans down to show her, she is wearing ruby slippers, a reference to her role of the Wicked Witch.
  • In the film Liar Liar, the actor playing Jim Carrey's son makes a funny face and asks if his face will get stuck like that. Carrey replies with something like "No; in fact, some people make good money that way," poking fun at his own distinctive style of acting.
  • In Hot Shots! Part Deux President Benson dons a wet suit and joins a Navy Seal team of scuba divers. He also provides voice-over narration, describing the underwater action. The actor is most famous for the television series Sea Hunt.
  • In Star Trek Generations, we see a wet-behind-the-ears Captain Harriman, played by Alan Ruck. According to the Memory Alpha wiki, Harriman's personnel file from one of the video games says he has "a wife named Sloane and a son named Ferris who both live in Chicago, as well as interests in 20th century Italian sports automobiles."
  • Andy Griffith is forever remembered for the character he played on The Andy Griffith Show: an aw-shucks, small-town do-gooder with a heart of gold. But in the film A Face in the Crowd, Griffith plays Lonesome Rhodes: an immoral, power-hungry egomaniac who becomes one of the most popular personalities on television...by pretending to be an aw-shucks, small-town do-gooder with a heart of gold. Yikes.
  • The Rundown: At the beginning of the movie, The Rock is destroying the football players in the night club. One of them receives a Rock Bottom, his finisher in WWE.
  • Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was not Helena Bonham Carter's first time playing an insane, corset-wearing, mentally unstable yandere with a crush on a ruthless serial killer.
    • Even more bizarre is that Johnny Depp seems to have copied her hairstyle from that role.
  • The third Transformers film has an especially clumsy one: Sentinel Prime, voiced by Leonard Nimoy, says the line "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."
    • There's also an ironic bit of foreshadowing concerning Sentinel with a scene at the beginning of the movie. The two smallest Autobots are watching the original Star Trek: The Original Series television series when one of them remarks that he's seen this episode before, it's the one where Spock goes crazy.
    • This is also not the first time that Leonard Nimoy has played a major villain in a Transformers movie. He voiced Galvatron in The Movie of the original cartoon series.
  • In his first appearance onscreen in Zardoz, Sean Connery aims his gun at the camera and shoots it.
  • Madhouse: Having Vincent Price play an actor well known for playing the villain in horror films is sort of an actor allusion in and of itself, but then there's the fact that the clips we see of his character's old films are actually doctored scenes from other American International Pictures films starring Price. Also, after his character suddenly disappears during a talk show appearance, the host notes that he once played the invisible man: Vincent Price starred in The Invisible Man Returns. Robert Quarry also gets an AIP-related Actor Allusion - During a costume party, his character is dressed as a vampire, and costume is the exact one he wore in the AIP film Count Yorga, Vampire.
  • Edward Hardwicke as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in Photographing Fairies. By the time the film came out, Hardwicke was by far best known as the second Dr. Watson in the Granada Sherlock Holmes adaptations.
  • In Sin City, a cop attacking John Hartigan (Bruce Willis) advises his colleague to kill without hesitation: John quickly dispatches them both and quips "Good advice". In Die Hard, John McClane (Bruce Willis) took down a terrorist who had told him to kill without hesitation... then snarked "Thanks for the advice". Bruce's also lying on his back, shooting upwards, on both occasions.
  • Gamera vs. Guiron featured a scene near the end of the film that seemed strange to non-Japanese viewers where the comic relief cop Kondo's glasses fell down his face, which he explained happened whenever he smiled. This was apparently actor-comic Kon Omura's trademark joke and appeared in most of his works.
  • Ace Ventura is afraid of bats, which makes sense, since Jim Carrey also played the Riddler in Batman Forever.
  • In 2006's Casino Royale once in Monaco James Bond and Girl of the Week Vesper Lynd stay at the Hotel Splendid. Hotel Splendide is an indie film starring Daniel Craig as the chef at a failing island resort.
  • In Shooter, Rhona Mitra's character apparently sleeps in her old Lara Croft outfit.
  • In Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Eddy Valiant (played by Bob Hoskins) is skeptical about Judge Doom's scheme to raze Toon Town to make room for a freeway. Hoskins was also in the 1974 movie Inserts, which involved an attempt to get a washed-up director's home torn down to make way for a freeway. Also, Judge Doom's line "Traffic jams will be a thing of the past foreshadows a scene in BackToTheFuturePart 2. See a review of the former here.
  • In The Lion King, Jeremy Irons is the voice of Scar, a fratricidal lion with a scar on his face. As he kills his brother (come on, everyone knows it happens), he says "Long live the king." In Kingdom of Heaven, Irons plays the scarred Marshal of Jerusalem, who chants "Long live the king" in the exact same voice at Guy de Lusignan's coronation.
  • Cuba Gooding Jr will be playing a Tuskegee pilot in the upcoming 2012 WWII movie, Red Tails. This isn't the first time Cuba played a Tuskegee pilot since the first one he did was in the 1995 HBO movie, The Tuskegee Airmen.
  • In the film version of Spawn, Martin Sheen says, "Let's start the Apocalypse Now!"
  • Cannonball: Look how Cannonball Buckman beats up the thug disguised as a motorcycle cop. Where have we seen David Carradine fight like this before?
  • In A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas, Harold is referred to as "Sulu". John Cho played Sulu in Star Trek. Also, when the arrive at the party, Kumar's friend admits he told the girl that Kumar worked at the White House. Kal Penn worked in the Obama White House.
  • Happy Gilmore managed the impressive feat of getting in at least three with Carl Weathers, who plays Happy's golfing mentor Chubbs. First, Happy, (who sneers at golf in the early sections of the film) asks Chubbs why a big guy like him isn't playing a real sport like football. (Weathers was once a pro football player). Chubbs claims his mother wouldn't let him play any dangerous sports, which Happy remarks might be a good thing. (Weathers played Apollo Creed from the Rocky movies, who died in the ring). Lastly, Chubbs is missing a hand, and Weathers' character from Predator had his arm cut off just before dying.
  • In Immortals John Hurt plays Zeus in human form - exactly what his character Caligula thought he was way back in I, Claudius.
  • In Crispin Glover's film What Is It? he has a role and asks the people around him what they address him as. One man answers "McFly".
  • The theatrical poster for The Parole Officer featured quotes - both glowing and condemnatory - from Steve Coogan's other comedic personas.
  • Unintentional (probably) but still funny example: in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, Allison Pill played the role of Zelda Fitzgerald, who threatened to kill herself because she thought her Scott (as in, F. Fitzgerald) was unfaithful. Pill's most famous role to date is Kim Pine, who also had a troubled relationship with another Scott.
  • Zoolander has Jon Voight as Derek's father say the following:

"Damn it Derek, I'm a coal miner, not a professional film or television actor."

    • David Duchovny as a conspiracy theorist.
    • Ben Stiller's character's manager is played by his father, and his love interest is played by his wife.
  • In Booky Makes Her Mark, Booky has tea with Lucy Maud (L.M.) Montgomery. Booky's mother is played by Megan Follows, perhaps best known for her role as Anne Shirley.
  • In Some Like It Hot, gangster Spats Columbo (played by George Raft) asks a coin-flipping hoodlum, "Where'd you pick up that cheap trick?" Raft became famous playing coin-flipping gangsters in movies like Scarface and If I Had a Million.
  • In Tapeheads, the FBI agent who says "Remember what we did to Jello Biafra?" as he arrests Tim Robbins and John Cusack is Jello Biafra, who less than two years earlier had been prosecuted for obscenity based on complaints from the PMRC.
  • Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Todd Ingram, a Vegan Psychic with Telepathic powers and also plays electric bass is played by Brandon Routh, the same actor who played Superman in Superman Returns. The Vegan Police come in and zap him when he drinks half-and-half with a green beam that removes his powers. The Trivia Subtitles even say that this was done deliberately because Routh was Superman.
  • In The Contender, Jeff Bridges plays the President of the United States, and puts his feet up on the resolute desk just like the Dude does. He also goes bowling.
  • Mavis Gary of Young Adult drives the same car as Stella Bridger of The Italian Job. Both are played by Charlize Theron.
  • In the film Think Like A Man, the male characters are discussing the film For colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf. One of the men mentions that he hates the movie--"That's the movie where Janet Jackson got AIDS and some crazy guy threw his kids out the window!" Sure enough, the man saying this is played by the same man who played the role of said "crazy guy"--Micheal Ealy.
  • Return of the Living Dead Part II gets bonus points for having a couple of characters say things their actors said as different characters in the previous film. For example, when Joey assumes that Ed wishes to be burned after he dies because he's worried some grave robber's going to steal his head:

Ed: Watch your tongue, boy, if you like this job!
Joey: Like this job!?

  • A somewhat strange example; In My Week With Marilyn, Colin Clark went to Eton and sang in the choir. Colin Clark did go to Eton, but it was his actor, Eddie Redmayne, who sang in the Eton College Choir.
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