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There have been several times in the various Star Trek series when one actor interacted with himself/herself as a clone, Mirror Universe double, or other "alternate" version of the same basic character. But has the same actor ever played two completely distinct characters in the same scene?

For example, Jeffrey Combs once said that he always wanted to do this with Brunt and Weyoun, but he never had the chance to. And in the Deep Space Nine episode "Chimera," the alien guest star was played by J. G. Hertzler, and Martok is mentioned several times in the episode, but he never appears on screen.

Has it ever been done?

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  • off topic, but isn't Michael Dorn the actor who played Worf the only actor from TNG who appeared in an original cast StarTrek film (playing his grandfather). I forget which film, but he was a lawyer or something.
    – Reactgular
    Commented Sep 30, 2012 at 20:43
  • @MathewFoscarini I don't know who the character is but he is indeed in ST6
    – Liath
    Commented Aug 13, 2013 at 9:02
  • James Doohan, who played Scotty, also did several voices for the series. I'm not sure if there ever was a single scene where he was both acting as Scotty and providing the voice of an alien or announcer. Similarly, Majel Barrett (Number One, Christine Chapel, Luxwana Troi) often provided the computer voice after the original series. Again, I'm not sure if this ever happened within a single scene.
    – Adrian McCarthy
    Commented Jul 22, 2016 at 15:19
  • Do robot copies count? "What are Little Girls Made of?" Kirk and the evil android copy of him. All the androids in "I, Mudd", although some were played by twins, there were scenes with multiple copies - too many to be different actresses (post-production effects).
    – Anthony X
    Commented Sep 5, 2016 at 5:20
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    @AdrianMcCarthy There was a scene in which Lwaxana is in a hallway, and asks the computer for directions, so in a manner of speaking, Majel does talk to herself.
    – Anthony X
    Commented Sep 5, 2016 at 5:21

7 Answers 7

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The best I can come up with is Brent Spiner - he played Data on The Next Generation, and appeared onscreen in three episodes as Lore, Data's brother. I'm not sure that this is far enough from the instances of clones or mirrors that you mention, but the characters exist simultaneously and have distinct personalities.

This is the Wikipedia article featuring Lore, and explains some of the filming techniques.

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    Why didn't I think of that? Data and Lore are essentially "alternates"--and in fact Lore impersonated Data at least once--but Data did appear together with Dr. Soong, also played by Brent Spiner.
    – Mason Wheeler
    Commented Sep 30, 2012 at 21:01
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    @masonwheeler Then Thomas William Riker might count, too
    – oers
    Commented Sep 30, 2012 at 22:49
  • As another answer already stated, there is an episode where Brent Spiner plays three characters in the same scene.
    – Trollwut
    Commented May 20, 2015 at 9:58
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    Don't forget Data and B-4 in the movie
    – cde
    Commented Jun 19, 2016 at 16:54
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There is the TNG episode "The Defector":

In addition to his regular role of Captain Picard, Patrick Stewart also played the role of the holodeck character of "Michael Williams" from Shakespeare's Henry V, Act 4, Scene I, in the opening scenes of the episode.

Stewart requested this out of his love for Shakespeare, himself a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Henry V

Henry V

Henry V

[Watch clip on YouTube]

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  • The other soldier looks a bit like Jonathon Frakes. If that is true then he also played a dual role in that scene if his paging Picard and Data count.
    – Erik
    Commented Aug 29, 2017 at 19:27
  • @Erik: It's not Frakes; the other soldier, John Bates, is played by S. A. Templeman.
    – Psychonaut
    Commented Aug 2, 2021 at 12:34
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The very best I can come up with is Brent Spiner.

He played not two but THREE characters in the same scene, in the 77th episode of Star Trek The Next Generation, 'Brothers', where he appears simultaneously as Data, as Data's evil android brother Lore, and as their creator Dr Noonien Soong.

EDIT: William Shatner kept doing it. In season one, he appears in The Enemy Within - repeatedly - as both the good Kirk and the evil Kirk (capturing him in engineering, recapturing him on the bridge, scenes in sickbay, scenes in the transporter room). The same season, in What Are Little Girls Made Of, he plays both Kirk and the Android Kirk in several scenes. And in Operation Annihilate he plays both Kirk and Kirk's brother, Sam. In season 2, in Return to Tomorrow he plays both Kirk and the alien leader, Sargon. In season 3, he appears in Whom Gods Destroy as both Kirk and Kirk's double, the disguised Lord Garth of Izar. And in Turnabout Intruder he plays both Kirk and Dr Janice Lester, when she takes over his body.

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  • This, and the episode where he dreamed of meeting his father were what first came to mind when I read this question.
    – Kalamane
    Commented Nov 13, 2012 at 4:33
  • Shatner also played Kirk and Marta (shapeshifted to look like Kirk) in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
    – Jesse C. Slicer
    Commented Jan 28, 2019 at 18:03
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Majel Barrett played Nurse Christine Chapel throughout the original series and "Number One" in its first pilot called The Cage, which was subsequently repackaged into The Menagerie. She also was the voice of the computer on Next Generation—a triple role. Simultaneously, she was the computer voice and Deanna Troi's mother Lwaxana Troi on TNG.

George Takei played Lt. Sulu the ship's physicist in the second original series pilot Where No Man Has Gone Before, whose character became helmsman in subsequent episodes. Arguably, this is only one character.

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    but did Lwaxana ever talk to the computer, or appear in a scene during which someone else interacted with the computer?
    – Kate Gregory
    Commented May 20, 2015 at 13:05
  • @KateGregory: I don't remember. It seems a good enough <s>reason</s> excuse to review the episodes.
    – wallyk
    Commented May 20, 2015 at 16:31
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    Wasn't Majel Barrett also the computer voice in the original series? So maybe also search for a scene with both Nurse Chapel and the computer.
    – Gerald Edgar
    Commented May 20, 2015 at 16:35
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    @KateGregory Yes.
    – Rand al'Thor
    Commented Jun 28, 2016 at 13:48
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    +1: I do recall her and the computer speaking in a scene (see Adeptus's answer). Despite @Ed999's argument about a disembodied voice, if Data's is a character, this becomes a fine line. After all, the holodeck can make personality, and people do talk about the computer's interactions. But, most compellingly, the computer is definitely not meant to be the same character as Lwaxana, as contrasted to Robert Picardo's portrayal of the EMH essentially being a "copy" of Zimmerman. "The computer" was not based on, and had nothing to do with Lwaxana, so counting them different seems fair.
    – TOOGAM
    Commented Jul 12, 2017 at 2:47
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In addition to the answers above Robert Picardo played several different EMH characters (ST First Contact, ST Voyager). He also played the maintenance hologram for the EMH and Lewis Zimmerman on occasion.

While you could argue the EMH programs are the same character Zimmerman is very different!

W. Morgan Sheppard also played four minor characters.

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  • In the same scene?
    – OrangeDog
    Commented Jun 19, 2016 at 9:25
  • @OrangeDog One of the later season Voyager episodes "Life Line" (S6E24) has the EMH travel through a micro-wormhole to the Alpha Quadrant in order to treat his creator, Dr Zimmerman, who is stationed on Jupiter Station. Also, DS9 episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" (S5E16) has Zimmerman come to DS9 to work on a new EMH based on Dr Bashir. The (old) EMH shows up in a few scenes.
    – n_b
    Commented Oct 30, 2016 at 3:09
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In A Fist Full of Datas, Brent Spiner plays Data, and multiple holodeck replicas of himself.

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  • While you could argue they are all essentially copies of Data, each of those characters are sufficiently unique and rather unrelated to each other. (The woman at the end had nothing to do with the criminal.) They are truly separate characters. Great answer.
    – TOOGAM
    Commented Jul 12, 2017 at 2:49
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In the old series. James Kirk played many roles. He played a surgically modified human made to look romulan to steal the cloaking device. A drill thrall in the gamesters of triskellion. He played the character called Baroner in the Organian -Klingon conflict. He played a Native American named Kurok after his memory was erased in the control room of asteroid deflector.

He was transposed into the body of a woman named Janice Lester. He was duplicated the body of an android on a ice planet controlled by Dr Roger Kirby.

He played a gangster in the "A piece of the Action".

I figure that ain't bad for close to 40 years with memory alone.

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    We're looking for out of universe actors playing different in universe characters in the same scene.
    – OrangeDog
    Commented Jun 19, 2016 at 9:26
  • @OrangeDog :In all those scenes he is playing dual roles.
    – user36891
    Commented Jun 19, 2016 at 17:03
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    James Kirk is a fictional character, not an actor.
    – OrangeDog
    Commented Jun 19, 2016 at 18:17
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    @OrangeDog: No kidding...they are all fictional characters. The actor was William Shatner.
    – user36891
    Commented Jun 19, 2016 at 21:07

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