The most roles played by one actor in a single movie
Embodying the mind and body of a character is one of the biggest challenges that actors face when making a movie. The best performers to do this, such as Daniel Day-Lewis, Meryl Streep and Marlon Brando, seem to effortlessly possess the personality of another, providing iconic performances in such movies as Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, Robert Benton’s Kramer vs. Kramer and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, respectively.
Still, there are some performers who wish to take this challenge a few steps further, dedicating themselves to taking on not just one character but multiple in just a single movie. The actor who comes to mind instantly is Peter Sellers, who played Captain Lionel Mandrake, President Merkin Muffley and the insane closet Nazi Dr. Strangelove in Stanley Kubrick’s iconic 1964 war movie named after the latter German.
Elsewhere, this practice thrives in the comedy genre, with Mike Myers playing the titular British spy as well as his arch-nemesis in the Austin Powers trilogy, whilst in The Nutty Professor, Eddie Murphy took on countless roles in the playful family flick. Monty Python and The Holy Grail also sees the eclectic comedy troupe take on multiple characters, playing out the medieval movie like a theatrical pantomime.
Yet none of these aforementioned actors compares to the one individual who played 45 separate roles in one 2017 film.
Helmed by P. R. Unnikrishnan, Aaranu Njan is a Malayalam movie that stars Johnson George as multiple different characters, appearing as Mahatma Gandhi, Leonardo da Vinci, and Jesus Christ among many others. Holding the record for the most roles played by an actor in a single film, Johnson also produced the movie, making it surely something of an ego project.
Indeed, no one has even come close to matching this impressive record, with only a few actors having the accolade of being able to say that they played two actors in a single film, let alone 45.
Maybe less is more, though, with the quality of one performance meaning much more than the quantity someone else may play in another film. Sellers, for example, is one of the few comedy actors who were able to pull off three separate characters in a single film, yet the same cannot be said for someone like Murphy in 2007’s Norbit, who barely seems able to give one convincing performance.
If you feel compelled to watch Aaranu Njan, you can check out the pretty straightforward trailer below, but if you’re after some great films that feature multiple performances, we’d kindly recommend Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, Spike Jonze’s Adaptation or Chris Columbus’ family comedy Mrs. Doubtfire.
