TV Tuesday: You Again!

[yourlibrarian]

My partner and I joke that the UK only has 100 actors and they're always re-appearing in assorted combinations across shows. Are there actors (from any country) you’ve seen paired up more than once as regulars in different shows?

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

I think my favorite recent example of this came from the Cambridge Spies miniseries. Had something of a who's who list of actors who have all gone on to successful careers, but two things really stood out to me. The first is that Samuel West played the same character in this series as in The Crown (I'm sure that was very intentional casting!) Similarly Imelda Staunton appears here as the queen mother and then as Elizabeth II in The Crown (although not in the season where West appears).

The second was that Rupert Penry-Jones and Toby Stephens played opposite one another here and then again (very meaningfully) in Black Sails.

[misbegotten]

Does Staged count? :D

I'm always amused when we look up yet another vaguely familiar actor and then discover we initially saw them on Doctor Who.

I would love to see Olivia Colman and David Tennant together in a series again.

[yourlibrarian]

Ha! Well in certain cases it is definitely deliberate casting by the actors themselves 🙂 I agree about Colman and Tennant, though part of the fun of Broadchurch was hearing him call her Mill-ah.

Yes, so many people passing through Dr. Who! We were just looking up someone yesterday and I believe I saw her in Cranford (which it seems just about every British actor of a certain age was in). But she too had been on Who.

[starfleetbrat]

I recently did a binge of a ton of mystery shows on Britbox and AcornTV and I can confirm that your joke is fairly accurate lol

Here in Australia it feels like we have the same "issue" where you see a lot of the same actors in a lot of shows.

We do also have the fun of having some Australian actors who are now known for US shows come home and act in local tv dramas, like Miranda Otto and Simon Baker.

[yourlibrarian]

Ha, good to hear it struck a chord!

[feurioo]

My first thought was comedians/comedy duos. David Mitchell and Robert Webb, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, Nick Frost and Simon Pegg. Also, Tamsin Greig and Stephen Mangan (Green Wing, Episodes).

I also sometimes see reunions between romantic leads in K-dramas which are usually celebrated when the original show was a big hit. Example: Jang Hyuk and Jang Na-ra starred together in Successful Story of a Bright Girl (2002), Fated to Love You (2014), and Family: The Unbreakable Bond (2023). Similarly, Hwang Jung-eum and Ji Sung reunited in Kill Me, Heal Me (2015) after previously starring together in Secret Love (2013).

[yourlibrarian]

Oh interesting about the K dramas. It makes a lot of sense in that genre.

[tinny]

This is very common in kdrama and thai drama (as mentioned above). Once a couple (especially romantic) is successful, they keep getting put in more romantic dramas together - and that goes for all genders. I see how that makes the fanbase more likely to hop onto the next drama - it's like a sequel, less risk for the producers.

cdrama otoh did the opposite with m/m romance partners - they forbid them from ever working together again. ;((( [I say "did" because there are no m/m romances at all anymore, they completely censored the whole genre away.]

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, very much like a sequel! Shame about the cdramas ☹️