12 Actors Who Reprised Their Roles In Different Projects

Check out the box office results from 2024, and you'll have to scroll down a while to find a film that isn't part of the barrage of Hollywood sequels, remakes, adaptations, and spinoffs. In fact, you have to go all the way down to the 21st-most-successful film of 2024 to find a wholly-original property. That movie was John Krasinski's "IF," and chances are that one'll probably get a sequel too.

It's no surprise that people like things they're already familiar with. As University of Surrey lecturer Erica Hepper, Ph.D., told The Huffington Post, "Nostalgia is the warm, fuzzy emotion that we feel when we think about fond memories from our past." People want to watch characters they already know because it feels good to see someone you're familiar with, and the industry seems to be leaning into this more than ever.

As a result, many actors have been tapped to bring back their most famous characters in some pretty unexpected places, not just making sequels but taking their characters into new formats and genres. Beloved characters have been used for ads, repurposed in different shows, and have even crossed over into the real world.

Here are 12 actors who reprised roles in different projects.

When Mike Myers convinced a studio to take a chance on "Austin Powers," he created several iconic characters that became instant pop culture classics. Aside from the mega-horny spy himself, Myers also played his nemesis Dr. Evil, a parody of sneering, sniveling James Bond villains who can't help but monologue about their nefarious plans. "All Bond villains tell you everything. They all have an affliction," Myers explained to Vulture, finally offering an explanation for the supervillain's iconic mannerisms. "The Dr. Evil pinkie was originally that he was unfrozen but his hand was ten minutes late, and so he's constantly warming up his hand."

It's been more than two decades since we got a new "Austin Powers" film, but Myers brought Dr. Evil back for a Super Bowl ad in 2022. The commercial was for General Motors, and it featured Myers reprising his role, imagining Dr. Evil taking over the car company and deciding to save the world... so he can then destroy it. "I had so much fun," Myers told "The TODAY Show. "I love doing that character ... It was a wonderful time."

Interestingly, Myers has hinted that we might not have seen the last of Austin Powers, either. In 2024, he told TooFab that there may be another film someday. "I would be surprised if it didn't [happen]," he teased. Here's hoping the shagadelic superspy has one last adventure up his ruffled sleeve.

Is there such a thing as a pre-prise? Fans love to point out that long before audiences fell in love with Danny Trejo's machete-wielding badass Machete — thanks to a hyper-violent trailer that played during "Grindhouse" and two follow-up movies, "Machete" and "Machete Kills" — the character first appeared in director Robert Rodriguez's "Spy Kids" films. (In other words, the "Machete" films we think of first are actually the character's reappearance.) He was a much kinder character back in the "Spy Kids" days, a fun-loving uncle to pint-sized spies Juni (Daryl Sabara) and Carmen Cortez (Alexa PenaVega).

Trejo told Remezcla that there are two different ways to think about the character's continuity. "Machete Cortez in 'Machete' is what Machete Cortez in 'Spy Kids' does when he's not taking care of the kids," he said first, before changing his mind. "Wait, hold on," he said. "Machete the character was actually the first Machete. After he was done being 'Machete' Machete, he became Uncle Machete in 'Spy Kids.'" Would that be before or after Machete's potential trip to space?

Either way, Machete is a great example of an actor returning to a role and taking it to a new level. He had one more thing to clear up, however, clarifying that Antonio Banderas's "Spy Kids" character was categorically not the same person he'd played in Rodriguez's "Desperado." Trejo laughed, "It was hard enough making him tough in 'Desperado.'"

Tom Cruise loves to bring a character back. He's played Ethan Hunt for many, many "Mission: Impossible" movies across several decades, and he reprised his "Top Gun" pilot Pete Mitchell in the 2022 film "Top Gun: Maverick." One of Cruise's more unusual reprisals, though, came when his "Tropic Thunder" character Les Grossman apparently crossed over into the real world. Cruise acted against type in the 2008 comedy, playing a balding, hairy-chested film executive. He presides over the troubled production that the movie is about, often video-calling in to insult his underlings. In one of the film's most iconic sequences, he even dances, proving that the actor is able to let loose on screen in ways nobody expected.

Cruise brought Grossman back for the MTV Movie Awards in 2010, playing along with a gag that imagined the awards show was being produced by the character. He even showed up onstage, busting out those thoroughly-ridiculous dance moves in a performance with Jennifer Lopez. He told ABC News that the popstar didn't take much convincing, recalling, "I told her, and she just started to laugh ... I didn't even finish the sentence; she just started laughing." Lopez even suggested that the two perform her own iconic dance moves, the cane dance from the "Get Right" music video. "It was really fun working with her on that," Cruise recalled, "and she was just, you know, brilliant."

Director Kevin Smith first launched what he calls The View Askewniverse in 1995, thanks to his ultra-indie black-and-white comedy "Clerks." That was the first appearance of the duo that came to be known as Jay and Silent Bob, burnout characters played by Jason Mewes and Smith himself, respectively. They showed up in "Clerks" and came back in "Mallrats," two hangers-on who interact in various ways with the main characters of those films. 

They've since gone on to appear in numerous other films, mostly directed by Smith, but they've occasionally brought the characters back in other properties. In 2000, they showed up in "Scream 3," appearing as tourists on a studio tour as Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) is ejected from the set of "Stab 3." Jay, of course, confuses Gale for Connie Chung.

Smith later told Entertainment Weekly that filming the cameo was the first time they'd actually shot something on a studio lot. "This would be f***ing dope," he remembers thinking. "Make a whole movie, like on a soundstage, man? Jay and Silent Bob just bombing around a set?" The idea led to "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back," their biggest outing yet, and "Scream" director Wes Craven makes a cameo in that film. Smith reasoned, "I paid him back, man."

If you're hungry for more Jay and Silent Bob, check out the correct order to watch the "Jay and Silent Bob" movies.

The "Back to the Future" trilogy hops around in time. Thanks to a time-traveling Delorean invented by the kooky Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), the first movie takes Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) back to 1955. The next one rocketed him into the far-off futuristic year of 2015, while "Back to the Future: Part III" went all the way back to 1885. 

It took Lloyd a while to realize the impact of "Back to the Future," but he eventually came to appreciate the effect his films had on audiences. "So many people have come up to me and say how I made their childhood or the film made their childhood," he told GQ, "or they became engineers or scientists or surgeons or whatever, from the effect of the film on them. And nothing else I've done has had that kind of impact." That's exactly why Seth MacFarlane brought him back in a surprising but sensible way.

Lloyd has been all too happy to bring Doc Brown back in various capacities, from commercials to voicing the character on "Robot Chicken," but it's his cameo in Seth MacFarlane's "A Million Ways to Die in the West" that really delighted fans. The movie takes place in the Wild West, right around when Doc Brown was trapped in the past, and he shows up tinkering with his trusty time machine out in a barn. "I kind of think it is [canon]," Lloyd told Collider. "It fit into the storyline without a bump."

Richard Linklater's "Before" trilogy paired up Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy three separate times. In a series that spans many years — with each film taking place over the course of one single day — the two have a meet-cute on a train, walk around getting to know one another, fall in love, go their separate ways, reconnect, and finally try to make it work. Powered by two incredible performances, the series is a stunningly intimate look at love and longing. It's a gift to watch these people grow and change over time, and there's nothing quite like it.

Richard Linklater's "Waking Life," on the other hand, is made up of an animated series of vignettes that glimpse characters in moments both pivotal and mundane. The film came out in 2001, after "Before Sunrise" but preceding "Before Sunset" and "Before Midnight," meaning when Hawke and Delpy show up once more as Jesse and Celine, it was the first time they'd reprised the characters.

Linklater later explained his thinking to PopMatters. "I just saw my own creations float back in, with something to offer this movie," he said. "Julie and Ethan, from 'Before Sunrise' – what they're saying is incredibly relevant to 'Waking Life,' it's some of the key thoughts that fit into the film." He wanted to make it accessible to people who hadn't seen the original film, though, concluding, "I wasn't too precious about it."

Many long-running television shows have some level of a will-they, won't-they couple, and "Gilmore Girls" was no exception. In fact, the show's very first scene features Lorelai Gilmore (Lauren Graham) wandering into the coffee shop run by Luke (Scott Patterson), flirting with him in exchange for her sixth cup of coffee of the day. Luke and Lorelai would be on-again, off-again many times throughout the series, delighting fans with their chemistry, which often consisted of dryly-sarcastic quips about caffeine but could quickly tip over into passionate romanticizing.

The last time viewers saw Luke and Lorelai, they were firmly together at the end of Netflix's "Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life" revival ... that is, until they were reunited once again by Walmart, of all things. Graham and Patterson reprised their characters in a holiday ad for the big box store, which saw Luke and Lorelai revisiting several memorable locations from the Stars Hollow set of the show.

Patterson was particularly delighted to reunite with his longtime screen partner. "I've never worked with anybody with a better skill set, more grit and just this incredible stamina among the other things that she brings with her humor and her kindness. So it was a real kick in the pants," he told People, noting that he's losing his sight as he ages. "I saw this very attractive woman with dark hair. And as I got closer, it turned into Lauren."

One of the best things about "Orange is the New Black" was the show's massive ensemble cast, allowing viewers to really sink into the stories of the women who were incarcerated at the Litchfield Correctional Institute. Though the show occasionally varied in quality — check out our ranking of every "Orange is the New Black" season — the performances remained top-tier, producing numerous fan-favorites throughout the show's run. That included Adrienne C. Moore's performance as the character called Black Cindy, an inmate who became more and more involved in the show's main action as the series went on.

Though "Orange is the New Black" could occasionally get quite dark, Moore's character crossed over to another, significantly-lighter Netflix property. She also appeared as Black Cindy on "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt," reprising her role when Gretchen (Lauren Adams) gets sent to Litchfield. Moore told Brief Take that she was a huge fan of "Kimmy Schmidt" creator Tina Fey. "When I got the call to come to an episode of 'Kimmy Schmidt,' which I was already a fan of," she said, "it was just another moment of 'I cannot believe this is happening!'"

"The Big Lebowski" might be one of the most quotable movies ever made, and it produced several memorable characters that made their mark on film history. John Turturro, for example, reprised his character Jesus Quintana in "The Jesus Rolls," the "Big Lebowski" spinoff you probably already forgot about. Most people, though, remember the movie for Jeff Bridges's performance as Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski.

Bridges has said he's open to doing a proper sequel to the classic film, telling People that he'd only return to the character if the Coen Brothers were involved. "I don't think they'll make a sequel. But like I say, they're surprising, so maybe they'll surprise me and make a sequel," he said.

Nevertheless, Bridges has indeed reprised The Dude. He brought the character back in a 2019 commercial for Stella Artois, playing The Dude as a guy lounging in a bar drinking a beer. (A likely place for him to be!) There's one catch, though: The Dude meets a fabulously-dressed Sarah Jessica Parker, reprising Carrie Bradshaw years before "Sex and the City" sequel series "And Just Like That." He said in a press release (via TODAY) that the ad partnered with Water.org to bring clean water to people who need it. "Together with Stella, we can help make a big impact ... and that's something The Dude would abide, man," he said.

"Groundhog Day" is one of the best time-loop movies of all time. It's about a Pittsburgh weather man named Phil Connors (Bill Murray) who's sent out to Punxsutawney to cover the small town's yearly Groundhog Day celebration. Unfortunately, the next day, he wakes up back in town, living the same day over and over again until he can figure out how to break the pattern. (Hint: it's love!) It's a plot that a ton of movies have copied since, but few pull it off as well as "Groundhog Day."

Murray probably felt a serious case of déjà vu in 2020, when he brought Phil Connors back for a Jeep ad. The Super Bowl commercial sees Murray stuck once more in a time loop that begins with Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe" and includes Stephen Tobolowsky's Ned Ryerson greeting him each morning. In a press release about the commercial, Murray complimented the corporation that got him back to Punxsutawney, joking, "This is my first commercial. I'm glad I did it with [Jeep]. And I'm glad that this is my last commercial, as well."

Many actors are lucky if they get to reprise their most famous characters in a few sequels. Then there's Robert Englund, who got to play Freddy Krueger across eight "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies and a television show. The Springwood Slasher is, of course, a man covered in burn scars who haunts the dreams of teenagers, tormenting them with both his knife glove and his terrible puns. He menaced teenagers within his movies, but he also frightened teenagers in the real world, stalking the dreams of anyone who grew up watching the movies.

That's why, in 2018, Englund reprised Freddy on an episode of the ABC sitcom "The Goldbergs." The 1980s-set show's Halloween episode "Mister Knifey-Hands" featured Krueger bursting into the world of the show, terrorizing its main characters. England told Entertainment Weekly that he signed on because he was touched by the show's depiction of being scared by "A Nightmare on Elm Street" as a family bonding experience. "I was ostracized as being this purveyor of violence and gore and bad for the culture, and I was very defensive of that because prior to Freddy I had been a very successful, mainstream, almost A-list actor and television star," he said. Now, people understand that Freddy brings families together.

Henry Thomas was just a child the first time he played Elliott. The main character of Steven Spielberg's "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" is a boy who discovers an alien in his backyard, forming a psychic bond with the adorable creature. Thomas had wanted to act, and he was quite good at it, but he didn't quite understand that playing the role would make him famous. "It was a total unexpected side-effect of doing this fun thing I had wanted to do. I had no clue that my life would change in any way," he later told The Guardian. "I worked on this movie, then I'm back on the farm, I'm back at school –- but now people are pointing at me in the street."

The experience nearly made Thomas quit acting, but he stuck with it, and he now enjoys a thriving career. For example, he's a Mike Flanagan regular, having appeared in "The Haunting of Hill House" among other Flanagan projects. He also brought Elliott back for an Xfinity commercial in 2019, telling Variety, "The audience is going to get everything they want out of a sequel without the messy bits that could destroy the beauty of the original and the special place it has in people's minds and hearts."