Top: Laurence Olivier, mostly known for his adaptations of Shakespearean plays note
Bottom: Kenneth Branagh, known mostly for his adaptations of Shakespearean plays, as Laurence Olivier note
Bottom: Kenneth Branagh, known mostly for his adaptations of Shakespearean plays, as Laurence Olivier note
This is where an entire role mirrors or parodies an entire previous role or Real Life situation of the actor. A conscious casting choice can be assumed; thus, it can also apply to cameos and guest stars. This forms a small joke or minor piece of merriment. Note that the gag is entirely dependent on the casting and the role rather than some later effected plot or dialogue. Compare Real Role, Fictional Actor, which may involve some element of a casting gag but is not usually one itself.
Contrastingly, an Actor Allusion is when the role being played can be nothing like the actor's real life or previous roles, but contains a Famous Role Shout Out: an allusion to the actor's work, but nothing more.
An actor can use this self-consciously when parodying themselves for Adam Westing. Compare with Playing Against Type, when an actor's role is (often consciously) very different from their typical ones, though this is less likely to be a gag. If the gag is that the character being played is untalented in something the actor excels in, then it's Irony as She Is Cast. If the Casting Gag is that the actor appeared in an earlier version of the same story, it's a Remake Cameo. If not only the actor appeared in an earlier version of the same story, but is cast as a parental figure for the character they played in that earlier version, it's a Predecessor Casting Gag. Compare also to Actor-Shared Background, when the gag doesn't reference a large part of the actor's real life but matches certain elements. See also I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine. Stunt Casting is often done with the aim of shoehorning in this trope.
Examples subpages:
Other examples:
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Audio Plays
- Big Finish Doctor Who: As the original Wilkin had been played by Gerald Campion, best known for playing the titular role in Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School, Wilkin from the 2003 remake was played by Melvyn Hayes, as director Nicholas Pegg knew Hayes had appeared alongside Campion in that same series.
- In Sumsi, a German-language audio play series based on the titular bee mascot of bank Raiffeisen, the titular bee is voiced by Scarlet Lubowski, best known for voicing the titular character in the German dub of the anime Maya the Bee.
Films — Animation
- A minor one in the Wreck-It Ralph Spanish dub. The Sonic cameo was voiced by Yamil Atala, who actually voiced Sonic in another series.
- The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars features Farrah Fawcett voicing a sentient faucet.
- In The Star the voice of the Blessed Virgin Mary is supplied by Gina Rodriguez, best known for playing another young woman who got pregnant without having sex beforehand.
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse:
- Mahershala Ali voices the Prowler, who like Cornell "Cottonmouth" Stokes from Luke Cage (2016), is a Marvel supervillain operating out of New York.
- Kimiko Glenn voicing Peni Parker is reimagined by a Genki Girl, much like Tomiko from Elena of Avalor, both of whom are voiced by Kimiko Glenn.
- Albino gangster Tombstone is voiced by rapper Krondon, who is best known for playing the albino gangster Tobias Whale in Black Lightning, and who himself has albinism in real life.
- Miles Morales' father Officer Jefferson Davis is voiced by Brian Tyree Henry, who's best known for his lead role in Atlanta as the cousin of Donald Glover's character. Donald Glover famously inspired the creation of Miles Morales when he campaigned for the role of Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man 1, and went on to voice Miles in Ultimate Spider-Man, as well as playing Aaron Davis (Jeff's brother) in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
- In Brother Bear the goofy Canadian moose brothers are played by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas - the goofy Canadian brothers from Strange Brew and SCTV.
- John Ratzenberger has had a speaking part in every Pixar feature film, sometimes in throwaway bits (the construction worker in Up), sometimes with major supporting roles (Hamm the Piggy Bank in the Toy Story franchise).
- In Flushed Away, Ian McKellen played a character who's trying to get rid of a species he considers inferior, only to be defeated by Hugh Jackman. He also did that in the X-Men film series.
- In the Shrek films, John Cleese voiced a frog who wanted to become royalty. He also voiced one in The Swan Princess.
- The Lion King (1994): James Earl Jones (Mufasa) and Madge Sinclair (Sarabi) previously played a king and queen of a fictional African nation in the movie Coming to America.
- In James and the Giant Peach, James and the insects face off against a giant shark. One of the insects is voiced by Richard Dreyfuss, who had another close encounter with a shark in Jaws. And the shark blows up in both instances.
- Casey Kasem voiced a DJ in Rugrats in Paris. Kasem was a well-known DJ himself.
- In Planes, two minor characters are Bravo and Victor, two Navy F-18s, who feel "The Need for Speed". The characters were voiced by Anthony Edwards and Val Kilmer, both of whom flew in F-18s in Top Gun.
- Cars 1:
- 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 in the climax, 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.
- Sigourney Weaver's role in WALL•E is a deliberate nod to Alien, with director Andrew Stanton noting to her "You realize you get to be 'Mother' now?" (with the obvious difference that Weaver is playing a good ship computer). Also Galaxy Quest, where her "one stupid job" was to be the mouthpiece for (and to) the ship's computer.
- At the end of The Jungle Book 2, Shere Khan (now voiced by Tony Jay) actually ends up being defeated by being plunged into a fiery pit, similar to Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
- In Meet the Robinsons, Lewis goes through each member of the Robinson family and how they're related to each other, with his mental family tree shown to the viewer; however, he hasn't met Wilbur's dad Cornelius, so he asks Wilbur what he looks like. After a Beat, Wilbur says "Tom Selleck" in a deadpan tone, and a Real Life picture of Selleck is used for Lewis' thoughts. In reality, Cornelius is voiced by Selleck but looks like Lewis as an adult. The line was actually written first, and that gave them the idea of offering Tom Selleck the role. In most of the dubbed versions (except for the Brazilian and Dutch), they replace the "Tom Selleck" line with whoever is voicing Cornelius in that language.
- Don Bluth's Thumbelina features Jodi Benson voicing a redhead who wishes to find love with someone of a different species - who also has most characters comment on her beautiful singing voice. It wasn't the first time she lent her voice to such a film, that also happened to be based on a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale.
- In the Brazilian Portuguese dub of The LEGO Movie, main character Emmet is played by Renan Freitas, who previously voiced another notorious builder.
- Hercules (1997) already has Bobcat Goldthwait as Pain. The Brazilian dub decides to one-up the casting right into this trope by making Pain and Panic be a reunion of Zed and Sweetchuck from Police Academy.
- In The Boxtrolls, it wouldn't be Dee Bradley Baker's first time playing a fish. He previously did that in American Dad!, with Klaus.
- Wonder Woman (2009): Hippolyta's voice actress, Virginia Madsen, is no stranger to playing a demigoddess' mother since she also played Arella from Teen Titans.
- The LEGO Batman Movie:
- Zach Galifianakis plays The Joker, making this his second role as a clown after Baskets.
- Sauron is voiced by New Zealander Jemaine Clement (the Lord of the Rings movies were famously filmed in New Zealand). Clements' Flight of the Conchords bandmate Bret McKenzie also famously had a bit part as an unnamed Elf in The Return of the King, who later became an Ensemble Dark Horse thanks to McKenzie's subsequent fame.
- Inside Out has an example similar to the Meet The Robinsons one above. Anger is constantly seen reading a newspaper that updates him on things in Riley's life, wears a white button-down shirt and tie, and, as to be expected, has a Hair-Trigger Temper. He's voiced by Lewis Black, who is famous for his "angry yelling" comedy persona. Black also wears the same clothes for his stand-up act and often uses stories from newspapers as fodder for jokes. This is all very deliberate—during the first pitch meeting of the movie, the writers, perhaps jokingly, told the studio heads to imagine getting different people to voice the emotions, specifically remarking "We could get Lewis Black to play Anger!" Sure enough, that's exactly what happened.
- In Incredibles 2, the mayor of New Urbem is voiced by Barry Bostwick, who played the bumbling mayor of New York City in the sitcom Spin City.
- In Frozen (2013), Elsa sings an "I Am Becoming" Song about embracing her snow powers. Elsa's voice actress, Idina Menzel, originated "Defying Gravity" on Wicked, another "I Am Becoming" Song of a misfit witch finding herself.
- Tommy 'Tiny' Lister, a guy known for being typecast as the Scary Black Man, voices a cute, tiny animal in Zootopia...whose got an aggressive personality that is not that far off from the Scary Black Man character he usually plays. It's just that, this time, he's not intimidating at all due to his looks and stature, while in his live-action movies, he's very intimidating.
- Heidi's Song: Sammy Davis Jr., a member of the Rat Pack, voices the leader of a group of actual rats.
- Lightyear:
- Chris Evans voices Buzz, who much like Captain America is sent decades into the future.
- James Brolin voices Big Bad Zurg, who's a big purple character and squares off against Evans's character... much like Thanos from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, played by his son Josh.
- Turning Red:
- Two of them happen in the Japanese dub and both involve Mutsumi Tamura, Priya's dub voice actress:
- She previously voiced a girl with glasses hanging around with a girl able to transform into a giant creature, except replace "red panda" with "dragon", and being her maid.
- Likewise, Tamura previously voiced Sayaka Kanamori, another Deadpan Snarker Bespectacled Cutie having to tolerate the antics of her more hyperactive nerdy friend.
- Another two happen in the Latin American Spanish dub:
- Priya's dub voice actress, Alicia Velez, also voiced another girl hanging around with a dragon girl who also transforms into a human and vice versa, and said dragon is also red like Mei. Curiously enough, Estefania Piedra (Mei) voiced Eno, which also sports red hair like Mei after her Red Panda form was awakened.
- Also from the same dub, Estefania Piedra (Mei) previously voiced a girl who is the child of immigrants, having a defying personality against her conservative mother, and just like Mei, she also twerks, except all of this is being Played for Laughs here.
- Two of them happen in the Japanese dub and both involve Mutsumi Tamura, Priya's dub voice actress:
- In the original German version of the 2018 CGI movie adaption of "Tabaluga'', Bully the ladybird is voiced by comedian and actor Michael Herbig, who is nicknamed "Bully" (a nickname he got from his teenage years when he often wore a Bayern Munich jersey to school with the sponsor of truck company Magirus, which used to advertise with the slogan "Die Bullen kommen!” note ).
- In The Legend of the Titanic's German dub, Elizabeth and Don Juan are voiced by Ulrike Stürzbecher and Gerrit Schmidt-Foß, the same people who did the voice acting for Rose and Jack from another Titanic movie.
- In The LEGO Movie:
- Will Forte voices Abraham Lincoln. Again.
- Superman and Green Lantern are respectively voiced by Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, with Green Lantern constantly getting on Superman's nerves. The two played the leads in directors Phil Lord & Chris Miller's previous film.
- Miranda Richardson has been in so many roles that involve beheading — Queen Elizabeth in Blackadder II, the Queen of Hearts in 1999's Alice in Wonderland TV miniseries, Lady Van Tassel in Sleepy Hollow — that it's hard to imagine her role as the chicken-killing Mrs. Tweedy in Chicken Run being anything other than an allusion to her past head-removing roles.
- J-Lo as Tip's mom in Home, as a reference to Oh's name in The True Meaning of Smekday — the novel the film was based on.
- In The Book of Life, Skeleton Jorge was played by famous Spanish opera singer Plácido Domingo and in the film who states that instead of bullfighting he wanted to sing at Operas.
- In Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, Superman is voiced by Nicolas Cage, who was famously slated to play the character in Tim Burton's unmade Superman Lives.
- In Chicken Little, Fish out of Water is voiced by sound designer Dan Molina. In the Film Within a Film at the end, the Hollywood version of Fish is voiced by storyboard artist Will Finn. Besides Finn's casting possibly being pun-driven, both Molina and Finn were previously the stars of Don Bluth's arcade games, Molina voicing the lead role in Dragon's Lair, Finn in Space Ace.
- In the English version of New Gods: Nezha Reborn, Ao Bing is performed by Aleks Le. He previously voiced the Fengshen Yanyi character Ao Bing in another Chinese film, Ne Zha, which takes on the myth differently (Ne Zha and Ao Bing start off as friends in Ne Zha whereas they were always mortal enemies in New Gods).
Literature
- The Final Girl Support Group: The audiobook is read by actress Adrienne King, who played Alice Hardy, the Final Girl in Friday the 13th (1980), and who the character of Adrienne in the novel is named after.
Music
- For his album Rock Swings Paul Anka covered Bon Jovi's "It's My Life" which references the song "My Way" by Frank Sinatra, which Anka wrote.
- Peter Gabriel's "The Barry Williams Show" is from the point of view of a trashy Reality Television show host, but the title wasn't meant to reference any specific celebrity, and the name "Barry Williams" was just meant to be as ordinary-sounding as possible. Peter Gabriel subsequently learned that there was in fact a TV star of that name, the American actor is best known for playing Greg from The Brady Bunch, so he got him to make a cameo in the music video... Ironically enough, he plays an audience member, not the host.
- P!nk's "Revenge", a Revenge Ballad about her and her friends getting back on an ex who treated her badly, has a guest verse from Eminem, infamous for channelling his real-life Destructive Romance with Kim Scott into songs about getting (bloody) revenge on her. Pink doesn't give any details about what her revenge is, and all Slim describes is intentionally cheating on his girl to make her feel bad... but his presence is enough to imply some violence to the plans. This is reinforced by the video, which is pretty gory for Top 40 pop.
- The voice provider of Vocaloid's Megpoid/Gumi is Megumi Nakajima, who had previously voiced the Idol Singer, Ranka Lee, from Macross Frontier. Her design is also very similar to Ranka's and has the same color scheme as her.
- For her video for duet with Chris Stapleton "We Don't Even Fight Anymore", Carly Pearce cast Lucy Hale, who Pearce used to sing backup for, as the female lead.
Radio
- In The Quandary Phase of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978), original H2G2 producer Geoffrey Perkins plays Arthur's boss at BBC local radio; a character with the same relationship to Douglas Adams' Author Avatar as Perkins had to Douglas himself.
- In the Big Finish Doctor Who audio drama Pier Pressure 1930s comedian Max Miller is played by Roy Hudd, president of the Max Miller Appreciation Society.
Theatre
- In 2009, Cate Blanchett played the title character in an Australian production of Richard II. Richard and Queen Elizabeth I (who Blanchett previously played in Elizabeth) have famously been compared—Elizabeth herself allegedly even said: "I am Richard II; know ye not that?" in response to hearing about a production of that very play, which was banned for depicting the overthrow of a king of England (she'd already suspected the people who requested the play from Shakespeare's troupe of plotting against her).
- Anne Hathaway's role as the lead in the 2009 Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night, though it's more of a casting pun. Her name is the same as Shakespeare's wife.
- Jesse L. Martin, the original Collins in RENT, was in the Rock Opera Bright Lights Big City as the protagonist's best friend, who expressed disdain for "yuppies" and enjoyed using certain, um, recreational substances.
- Darren Criss, known for playing Harry in A Very Potter Musical, took over Daniel Radcliffe's role in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
- Arsenic and Old Lace inverted this in the original stage version. The psychotic older brother berates his surgical henchman because someone said he looked like Boris Karloff. In the original Broadway cast, he was played by Boris Karloff. As the production was still making money at the time the film was set to be produced, the stage producers wouldn't allow Karloff out of his contract long enough to appear in the film version, and so the film producers had to make do with a heavily-made-up Raymond Massey. Karloff did get to reprise the role for a TV movie adaptation in 1962.
- For the 1951 West End production of A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams personally cast Vivien Leigh—who was still best known for playing Scarlett O'Hara at the time—as the mentally damaged Southern Belle Blanch Dubois, whose inability to cope with the loss of her family's ancestral plantation tragically costs her her sanity. The casting choice carried over to the well-known film adaptation released the same year (see "Film" above).
- The 2011 production of Company cast Neil Patrick Harris, an openly gay engaged man, as a bachelor who strings women along and disdains marriage.
- The original Broadway production of Shrek: The Musical cast John Tartaglia, a famous Broadway puppeteer and Muppet performer, as Pinocchio, a puppet.
- John Cleese voices God in Spamalot, a Broadway musical based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail. His lines are provided by a vocal recording in nearly every production, allowing him to play the role without needing to be physically present.
- The original Broadway production of Young Frankenstein features Shuler Hensley as the Monster, having previously played the part in the film Van Helsing.
Video Games
- 9: The Last Resort has Steven Tyler and Joe Perry voicing a pair of antagonists only known as The Toxic Twins - "the toxic twins" is a long-standing nickname for the two musicians dating back to the 1970s.
- Akanesasu Sekai de Kimi to Utau, Shin-ichiro Miki voices Sakamoto Ryōma. He has also voiced Sakamoto Tatsuma from Gintama.
- Who's that playing übercapitalist Andrew Ryan in BioShock? Why it's Armin Shimerman, who you might remember as Quark the Ferengi from Deep Space 9!
- Shimerman also voiced one of the villains from the Ratchet & Clank series - the main rival of a character named 'Qwark'.
- Amusingly, his Alternate Company Equivalent, the security-obsessed Robert House is played by René Auberjonois, a.k.a. Odo.
- Catherine has Michelle Ruff and Laura Bailey, both who played the Lovers Arcana social link Persona 3 and Persona 4, respectively, play the two K/Catherine characters in this game, vying for the same man.
- Halo:
- Nathan Fillion voices one of the main characters in Halo 3: ODST. Who plays his character's ex-girlfriend (and boss)? His ex-girlfriend Tricia Helfer. Who plays two of his squadmates? His old Firefly and Serenity castmates Alan Tudyk and Adam Baldwin.
- Halo 5: Guardians has a hilarious bit where you can find an audio recording showing that a Sangheili warrior is in love with Commander Palmer. Palmer is voiced by Jennifer Hale, who as Commander Shepard also had aliens lusting after her.
- Gary Oldman as the Russian Commander Reznov in Call of Duty World at War. Oldman had previously played the Russian terrorist Ivan Korshunov in Air Force One. His American counterpart is voiced by Kiefer Sutherland, of 24 fame. Sutherlands's previous voice-acting job was as the American general W.R. Monger in Monsters vs. Aliens.
- In Call of Duty: Black Ops:
- Ed Harris plays a CIA agent in the 1960s involved in many missions in Southeast Asia, especially during The Vietnam War. In The Rock, he played a Marine general who was famous for his black ops exploits in The Vietnam War.
- Gary Oldman reprising his role as Reznov? Vorkuta isn't his first time escaping from prison. Nor is it the first time he dies only seconds away from escape.
- Apple from Fruits Fulcute! is voiced by Uta no Miru, the same actress that played Apple from Flower Knight Girl, with the both of them being personifications of their namesakes (in the latter's case, representing the Malus domestica, AKA apple tree).
- Male protagonist Joshua Radcliff of Super Robot Wars D is voiced by Yūichi Nakamura in the Second Super Robot Wars Original Generation. This means players will see a robot-piloting Tomoya Okazaki (since both Tomoya and Joshua have blue hair and near-similar hairstyle), surrounded by Gundam lookalikes (Nakamura's role in Mobile Suit Gundam 00 is Graham Aker who memetically shouts "I LOVE YOU, GUNDAM!!"), fighting creatures empowered by despair (making him an anti-Hazama), alongside an orange-haired younger sister that can't be this cute. For bonus gag, said sister is to be voiced by Tomoyo Sakagami's seiyuu.
- Super Robot Wars X is not the first time Hideyuki Tanaka voices the Big Bad of a Banpresto-developed video game, who also turns out to be a giant monster with divine powers.
- Super Robot Wars X marks Keiichi Noda returning to voice another Familiar for an Original Generation protagonist (Ranshao for Hwang Yang Long), nor is this the first time he is cast as the game's True Final Boss before.
- Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep:
- Mark Hamill plays Master Eraqus, one of the few remaining masters of an ancient, inter-world knighthood with distinctive and iconic weapons. He is struck down halfway through the game by one of his pupils who embrace the darkness in his heart, but has appeared to transcend death, at least for the time being.
- Additionally, Master Xehanort is voiced by Leonard Nimoy. The English localization team confirmed that this was an intentional reference to the Star Wars vs. Star Trek fandom rivalry.
- Clara Hananokoji from the Power Instinct series was created as an Affectionate Parody of the Magical Girl genre, so of course Atlus hired Sailor Moon herself to voice her.
- The God of War series did this several times: Perseus is voiced by Harry Hamlin and Hercules is voiced by Kevin Sorbo, roles the actors previously played in Clash of the Titans and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys respectively. Carole Ruggier, the voice of Athena, also previously voiced the same character in Age of Mythology.
- Mass Effect franchise:
- The first game had Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation) playing Matriarch Benezia, an evil psychic from a highly spiritual culture of alien empaths. Not to mention Lance Henriksen (Bishop in Aliens) as Admiral Hackett, the Mission Control for the Space Marine protagonist.
- Mass Effect 2: Tricia Helfer of Battlestar Galactica (2003) voices the Normandy's AI, EDI. In Mass Effect 3 she gets a sexy female robot platform to travel around in. Several of her conversations have comments that are obvious references to her role as a Cylon, including at least once when she specifically says "By your command".
- In the Japanese version of Mugen Souls, the protagonist Chou Chou (voiced by Yukari Tamura), conquers and makes friends with everyone through the power of making them obey her. Does that remind you of someone?
- NieR: Automata: Eve is voiced by Tatsuhisa Suzuki in Japanese, and dubbed in English by Ray Chase. This is not the first time in a Square Enix game the two have shared a prominent role across languages.
- Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, a tongue-in-cheek Affectionate Parody of '80s action movies, features a badass "Cyber-Commando" as its protagonist. Naturally, said protagonist is played by Michael Biehn, who made his career battling cyborgs in The Terminator and leading a platoon of Space Marines in Aliens.
- In Dragon Quest Heroes, Rie Kugimiya voices Homiron, a slime. She already voiced a slime before, except it was a humanoid-looking, evil one.
- In Dragon Age: Inquisition, Morrigan's son Kieran is voiced by Odin Black, who is the real-life son of Claudia Black, who voices Morrigan.
- Granblue Fantasy Versus Rising has Meg and Mari voiced by Elsie Lovelock and Kayli Mills, respectively, a nod to their previous roles as the brunette and blonde Light Feminine and Dark Feminine pairing of Nicole and Jecka in Class of '09, albeit with the subtext between them replaced with just text.
- Infinite Crisis (2015) has a few voice actors voice alternate versions of the characters:
- Unlike Vanessa Marshall and Josh Keaton, who are reprising the respective roles of Wonder Woman and Aquaman, their Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths co-star Nolan North, who voices Green Lantern / Hal Jordan in that, voices Green Lantern's Atomic counterpart herenote .
- Steve Blum and James Arnold Taylor, who were in LEGO Batman, as the respective voices of Batman himself and Robin/Nightwing, voice the characters' Nightmare counterparts. Likewise, Travis Willingham and Laura Bailey voiced Superman and Wonder Woman respectively in its sequels, voices the characters' Mecha counterpart.
- Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions did this with the Spider-Men, with them being voiced by past Spidey voice actors: Neil Patrick Harris (Spider-Man: The New Animated Series) as Amazing Spider-Man (albeit only on the consoles), Christopher Daniel Barnes (Spider-Man: The Animated Series) as Spider-Man Noir, Dan Gilvezan (Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends) as Spider-Man 2099, and Josh Keaton (The Spectacular Spider-Man) as Ultimate Spider-Man (2000) (and Amazing Spider-Man on the DS). Its sequel Edge of Time also did this with two of the aforementioned and an interesting variation of The Other Darrin with Keaton and Barnes replacing Harris and Gilvezan in the respective roles of Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099.
- The US dub of Ape Escape 2 features Veronica Taylor and Rachael Lillis, best known as the voices of Ash and Misty respectively. They play the lead roles of Jimmy and Natalie, who are very similar to Ash and Misty. Jimmy is accompanied by a Pikachu-like Ridiculously Cute Critter monkey named Pipotchi, and Natalie looks very similar to Misty, both of them being redhead tomboys with pigtails. Plus they're in a game where you Gotta Catch 'Em All.
- Injustice 2 has the fear-obsessed villain the Scarecrow voiced by Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund.
- In Saints Row and Saints Row 2, Phil Morris voiced Legal Lee, who is a lawyer, much like his Seinfeld character Jackie Chiles.
- Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise features the voice cast of the Like a Dragon series as characters from Fist of the North Star, with each actor's characters sharing qualities with each other. To name a few examples:
- Takaya Kuroda voices Kazuma Kiryu and Kenshiro, stoic badass protagonists.
- Kazuhiro Nayaka voices Akira Nishikiyama and Shin, former best friends to the protagonist whose jealousy drives them to betrayal.
- Hidenari Ugaki voices Goro Majima and Jagi, crazed Combat Pragmatists who are obsessed with defeating their rivals.
- In Hitman (2016), William Mapother voices the target Dino Bosco, a Prima Donna Director and B-list actor. This is significant as not only is Mapother an actor who is a cousin of Tom Cruise, he was originally cast as the replacement voice actor for Agent 47 in Hitman: Absolution, but the original VA, David Bateson came back at the last minute after recording some lines in secret with IOI to prove Square Enix wrong (to which they agreed, and Bateson was added proper). His level in 2016 "The Icon". also has a pair of NPC's that references this backlash, and one of them wants Dino replaced with a guy named "Dave Bateson", and will form a petition to do so.
- In Hitman 2, Sean Bean voices the Elusive Target codenamed: "The Undying", real name Mark Faba, a target known for coming back from the dead when the ICA tries to assassinate him, and has canonically two separate contracts from the ICA as even 47 can't keep him dead for long. He's basically his GoldenEye character Alec Trevelyan in videogame form, crossed with the notoriety of Sean Bean being a Chronically Killed Actor.
- Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid features Dan Southworth returning to his role as Eric Myers, the Quantum Ranger, from Power Rangers Time Force. Eric's dialogue, however, is now peppered with references to Southworth's most famous video game role, Vergil from Devil May Cry, while his fighting style is reminiscent of The Musketeer fighting style used by Dante.
Eric Myers: I need more Quantum Power!Eric Myers: Foolishness, Lord Zedd. Foolishness.
- The 2020 game Genshin Impact, or 原神 yuánshén in Chinese casts Aoi Yūki as the female lead Lumine for its Japanese soundtrack. The gag is in Chinese: back in 2011, the shock from the series Puella Magi Madoka Magica tied, in many Chinese viewers' minds, the name Aoi Yuuki with her character Madoka Kaname, or the omniscient being Madokami, or directly translated in Chinese, 圆神 yuánshén. Fast forward to 2017, when Yuuki appeared as Yoshiko Hanabatake in Aho Girl, and the huge contrast between the two characters gave the latter the nickname 猿神 yuánshén meaning "the monkey goddess". The homonymic pun got a third member later that year with Akiho Kosaka from My Girlfriend is Shobitch as 援神 yuánshén, voiced by, you guessed it, Aoi Yuuki. As the voice actress of three successive yuánshén's, it makes sense for a game titled yuánshén to cast her as the leading characternote .
- Cyberpunk 2077: The creators of Cyberpunk have said that POV character Morgan Blackhand is pretty much grimyfuture John Wick, so when CD Projekt RED had the chance to cast Keanu Reeves, who played John Wick, in their adaptation... they cast him as the other prominent POV character Johnny Silverhand, who himself is based on Johnny Mnemonic, also played by Reeves.
- In Disco Elysium, the final conflict is between two sides led by two of the Chapo Trap House hosts - Felix Biederman's deranged mercenary Kourtenaer, and Matt Christman's Union strongman Titus. This appears to be a reference to how, on Chapo, when they argue it's usually over the cultural value of video gaming, with opposing positions that somewhat resemble the characters (Matt thinks it's a boot on our necks keeping us from rising up and destroying capitalism; Felix just likes that they let him pretend to be a soldier with a big gun).
- Dead by Daylight
- Vecna, the Whispered One, is voiced by Matthew Mercer, a famous Dungeons & Dragons fan and dungeon master of the Critical Role series, in which Vecna served as the Final Boss of the Vox Machina campaign.
- Dracula isn't the first time Crispin Freeman played a powerful vampire. Those who read the manga or watched Hellsing Unlimited will also know it's not the first time he voiced Dracula, either!
- Mortal Kombat's Johnny Cage was originally modeled after action star Jean-Claude Van Damme (specifically as he appeared in Bloodsport (1988)), and the series itself actually began life as an attempt at doing a licensed game starring Van Damme himself. Decades later, Van Damme would lend his voice and likeness to an alternate DLC skin for Cage in Mortal Kombat 1, bringing things full circle.
- Promise Mascot Agency has a number of these, but the most promiment is the protagonist, Michi, being voiced by Takaya Kuroda. Michi is a disgraced Yakuza member kicked out of the organization and forced to work his way back into their good graces. One of Kuroda's most famous roles is Kazuma Kiryu, protagonist of several Like a Dragon games, who has also frequently found himself disgraced and forced to work his way back into, or later, out of the organized crime world.
- Psychonauts 2: Razputin, voiced by Richard Steven Horvitz, gains the ability to summon a small, hyperactive oddball minion to help him with certain tasks. Said minion is voiced by Rosearik Rikki Simons. This is a reference to Simons' role on Invader Zim as GIR, a small, hyperactive oddball minion working for a character voiced by Horvitz.
- The Latin American dub of Smite casts Mario Castañeda as Sun Wukong. One of Castañeda's most famous roles is, of course, Son Goku in Dragon Ball, who is probably the best known Expy of Sun Wukong (at least in anime).
- In both the Japanese and English versions of Sonic Frontiers, Sage, a Rei Ayanami Expy, is voiced by Rei Ayanami's voice actress.
- Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin features Christopher Sabat as the voice of the game's first boss, the "Chaos Advent", who looks — and sounds — just like Garland, a role Sabat previously took up in Dissidia Final Fantasy. In this case, however, Sabat is Cast as a Mask: the person behind the "Chaos Advent" is a young woman named Neon, and the real Garland is revealed to be Jack near the end of the game.
- XCOM 2: War of the Chosen features several actors from Star Trek: The Next Generation: Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker) as Volk, Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troi) as Outrider, Denise Crosby (Lieutenant Yar) as Betos, Michael Dorn (Lieutenant Worf) as Mox, John de Lancie (Q) as Geist, and Dwight Schultz (Lieutenant Barclay) as a selectable voice for male Templars. The developers have cheekily noted that it's a "total coincidence" that they managed to get voice actors from one of their favorite sci-fi series on their game.
- The Feeble Files: The Oracle is voiced by Peter Tuddenham, who was best known for voicing the all-knowing computer Orac in Blake's 7, whose name was itself a play on "oracle".
- Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance: Konohana Sakuya is voiced by Ami Koshimizu in Japanese. Years earlier, she voiced Yukiko Amagi in Persona 4, whose Persona was Konohana Sakuya, albeit with a drastically different appearance than her eventual SMT incarnation.
- Yakuza 0: The Japanese voice actor of deuteragonist Akira Nishikiyama is Kazuhiro Nakaya, who would go on to play future series protagonist Ichiban Kasuga in Yakuza: Like a Dragon. In the English dub, Ichiban is voiced by Kaiji Tang, who would later voice Nishikiyama when the Director's Cut of 0 was released ten years after the original game.
Web Animation
- Red vs. Blue has the light being Huggins. When we meet their parents, they are voiced by two lighting artists.
- In gen:LOCK, Rooster Teeth CEO Matt Hullum voices the guy who financed the gen:LOCK project.
- Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged has Vincent being voiced by Curtis "[Takahata101]" Arnott, well-known for playing another gun-wielding vampire clad in red, while being credited as ??? It also lasts for all of 10 seconds before he's revealed to actually be voiced by Faulerro in what sounds like an impression of The Beatles.
- RWBY: Season 4 introduces Aaron Dismuke as Oscar Pine, who is at one point referred to by Qrow Branwen (voiced by Dismuke’s former co-star Vic Mignogna) as "pipsqueak" (which is a Berserk Button for Mignogna’s previous character of Edward Elric).
Web Videos
- In Critical Role: Exandria Unlimited: Divergence, Matthew Mercer gets to play as an old dwarf named Garen, who in the end of the campaign is revealed to be a mortal avatar of Moradin the All-Hammer, one of Exandria's creator deities, in what was a big love-letter from Liam O'Brien and Brennan Lee Mulligan to the creator of the entire setting of Exandria.
- The Time... Guys made their three-person cast a joke. One actor plays every single historical character the gang meets.
- Canadian programmer Ian Kirby, one of the Power Trio of artists behind Broken Saints, makes a Creator Cameo on the DVD voice track as a Canadian soldier.
- The Nostalgia Critic's review of Les Misérables (2012) makes fun of the Love at First Sight trope by having it happen between Paw Dugan and Maven of the Eventide; Paul Schuler and Elisa Hansen are engaged in real life.
- The antagonist of the Irish film Undefeated
is a bully who gives a speech about how repulsed he is by the thought of people being gay. His actor James Stephen Walsh is bisexual.
- In Mr Peterson, Robbie is a reckless driver who murdered the titular character with Car Fu. Bobby Calloway didn't know how to drive when his scenes were shot.
