Actors You Didn't Realize Played The Same Character

Johnny Depp seemed born to play gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. Aside from the fact that the two were friends in real life, Depp's ability to embody quirky, larger-than-life characters made him a natural for someone so idiosyncratic. Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, based on Thompson's beloved book, gave him that opportunity, and Depp delivered a full-bodied, suitably outrageous performance that captured its subject's ability to create mayhem wherever he went.

Before Depp, another famous name played Thompson. The 1980 film Where the Buffalo Roam cast Bill Murray as the Rolling Stone writer. While Depp may have done a better job playing the exaggerated way Thompson portrayed himself on the page, Murray did a better job playing the actual man. The movie is about Thompson's rise to prominence during the 1970s and therefore has a sense of realism in its storytelling. Fear and Loathing, on the other hand, is intentionally structured to replicate the drug trip Thompson and his "lawyer" were on during their visit to Nevada.

Neither movie was a blockbuster, although Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas has amassed a cult audience over the years.

In 1999, Matt Damon gave one of his definitive performances as Tom Ripley, the psychopathic lead character of The Talented Mr. Ripley. The movie was based on Patricia Highsmith's novel, which was the first of four to feature the character. Actor Alain Delon previously played Ripley in Purple Noon, a 1960 French/Italian picture loosely inspired by the same book. Those castings make sense when considered together. Damon was a young, handsome actor, just like Delon was at the time his film came out.

Tom Ripley was not done appearing onscreen, however. A more unlikely actor, John Malkovich, portrayed him in Ripley's Game, a 2002 movie based on the third installment of Highsmith's series. Audiences accustomed to Damon's performance may not have been aware that Malkovich was playing the same guy, just years later in life. That's especially true given that Ripley's Game was an independent film that didn't score a wide release, whereas The Talented Mr. Ripley was a hit from a major studio.

I Am Legend was a massive hit when it was released in 2007. Will Smith plays Dr. Robert Neville, the last human survivor in New York City following a plague that has turned others into mutants. He hopes to survive long enough to develop a cure. Part of what made the movie successful was that it combined science fiction with action - two genres in which Smith almost always excels. The role could not have been more in his wheelhouse.

Richard Matheson's 1954 book of the same name was the inspiration for I Am Legend. A less successful adaptation of his work was released in 1971 under the title The Omega Man. Charlton Heston plays Neville in this version, which is notable for having one of cinema's first onscreen interracial kisses. Both movies take some liberties with the source material. The Smith version, in particular, plays up the scarier moments. Such intense thrills doubtlessly contributed to its popularity with audiences.

The Omega Man, meanwhile, is considered a decent movie, although I Am Legend has overshadowed it as the definitive adaptation of Matheson's novel.

Die Hard is the movie that turned Bruce Willis from a TV actor into a hall-of-fame action hero. He plays John McClane, an NYC cop in Los Angeles, trying to rescue his wife from a team of terrorists that has taken over a high-rise office building. The film is based on the 1979 Roderick Thorpe novel Nothing Lasts Forever. Some of the details have been changed, such as the hero's name, as well as the family member he's trying to save. On the page, cop Joe Leland attempts to rescue his daughter.

Altering those details makes it difficult to recognize Die Hard's direct connection to another film. Nothing Lasts Forever is a sequel to Thorpe's book The Detective, which was turned into a 1968 movie of the same name starring Frank Sinatra as Leland. He investigates the slaying of a gay man and exposes a major cover-up in the process. 

This means that, even though the name was changed for Die Hard, Willis is essentially playing the same New York cop that Sinatra played in The Detective. The earlier film just shows what Leland/McClane was up to before that fateful trip to the West Coast.

Released in September 1990, Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas is considered to be the definitive gangster movie, equaled only by Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather. Ray Liotta plays Henry Hill, a guy who grows up idolizing the mob and eventually works his way up the ranks. After getting inextricably entangled in all manner of crimes, Hill turns into an FBI informant, ratting out his cohorts and going into the witness protection program. Goodfellas is based on Wiseguy, author Nicholas Pileggi's biography of Hill. 

One month before that picture's release, in August 1990, another movie based on Wiseguy hit theaters, and it could not have been more different in tone. My Blue Heaven is a goofy comedy that stars Steve Martin as Vincent "Vinnie" Antonelli, a former mobster who enters the witness protection program after - you guessed it - ratting out his cohorts. Whereas Liotta's character is a dangerous, substance-addicted guy, Martin's is a mischievous troublemaker.

How did we end up with two radically different versions of Hill's tale? The answer is simple. My Blue Heaven was written by Nora Ephron, the late comedy writer who just happened to be married to Pileggi.

The case of Goodfellas and The Big Heist marks one of those occasions in which a real person factored into two very different films. Robert De Niro plays Jimmy Conway in the 1990 Martin Scorsese classic. He's a gangster who, at one point in the story, organizes a heist of the Lufthansa vault inside JFK Airport. They make off with millions in cash and jewelry. Even though De Niro had played mobsters before, there is something particularly scary about him here.

Although the name was changed for the movie, Jimmy Conway was based on Jimmy Burke, a mobster with ties to the Lucchese crime family. The Lufthansa raid was only one part of Goodfellas, but was the primary subject of The Big Heist, a 2001 made-for-TV movie in which another veteran actor, Donald Sutherland, plays Jimmy Burke. His take on the role is much different than De Niro's, although wholly appropriate for the film, which is generally more lighthearted than Scorsese's dark and brutal picture.