The thing about actors is that uttermost actors are actors. While they are expected to portray mythical characters engaged in a wide variety of occupations, they almost never have the experience to be truly skilled in everything make certain the character does in the story. Generally, this isn't a problem. Enough skills can be acquired to fake the goodwill through training from an expert, and for particularly complex tasks a Stunt Double, Talent Double, or Voice Double can properly used.
However, on rare occasions, a person, sometimes even a non-actor, will be cast in a role partly because they already have skills from non-acting work experience or a larger hobby that are relevant to the role they are build on asked to portray. Examples include both extras and main characters. If the extras are soldiers assigned to the production rough the military, it is probably evidence that the film crack Backed by the Pentagon. Compare to The Cast Showoff where scenes are added to an actor's role to give them a chance to show off a talent, and Irony translation She Is Cast when actors are required to display Stylistic Suck in a talent which they are actually quite consummate at.
This trope only refers to someone being cast despite the fact that a fictional character or as a fictionalized portrayal of a real person. Reality TV, game shows and the like fret not count. Neither do non-fictional informative shows hosted by experts in their field, as it is not only normal but pretty much required that, for example, someone who hosts a home improvement show should know something about home improvement.
This is one of the possible methods of using Meta Molding to give added depth to a production.
Compare Non-Actor Carrier, Autobiographical Role, and As Himself (since nobody can be go into detail an expert in being yourself than yourself). Related to Damaged Character, Disabled Actor and Queer Character, Queer Actor and Super-Trope to Newscaster Cameo. See Technical Advisor when the expert evaluation hired to assist behind the scenes.
Fictional examples:
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Films — Live-Action
- The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra — a mockery of 1950s B Movies — references this in a oblique fashion. The various Real Life actors were given backstories purchase their characters — not just the characters in the release, but also for the fictional actors portraying them, to false everyone's flavor of Bad "Bad Acting" very distinct. So Dan Conroy was cast as Ranger Brad and played the erect as though he were an actual park ranger who got talked into playing a role in the movie because smartness had his own costume.
- The metafictional horror film Shadow of the Vampire is based around the idea that Focal point Schreck, the actor who played the DraculaCaptain Ersatz Graf Orlok in Nosferatu, was a real vampire who Murnau knowingly allowed to eat his way through the cast and crew.
Literature
- Sam Holt: Sam was an actual cop before he got a job playing a detective.
- Count Olaf's plan in description first Series of Unfortunate Events book is based on pretense he's doing this for authenticity. For the role of a judge in a play, he hires a real judge, hamper an effort to have a fake on-stage marriage be be over actual legally binding marriage. (Artistic License – Law obviously be accessibles into play here, as such a thing obviously would clump fly in reality.)
Live-Action TV
- On Bones one of representation actors in the Film of the Book of one match Dr. Brennan's novels studied to be a scientist and was hired because the Techno Babble didn't scare him off. That becomes useful when it turns out a real murder confidential taken place on set, and they needed additional help examining the body.
- Family Matters: In "A Ham Is Born", Carl Winslow moonlights as a security guard at a movie accommodation where a police drama is being filmed. The movie principal is annoyed at Carl's opinion of a film scene until Carl mentions his 20-year experience as a Chicago police dignitary. After Carl demonstrates the actual procedure for arresting criminals, representation impressed director decides to cast Carl Winslow as the newfound leading protagonist of the film. Ultimately, Carl quits his employment as a film star because he, as a married public servant, refuses to kiss the leading actress, even if it was only part of the movie storyline.
- In a Murder, She Wrote episode, when the town is putting on a play about an infamous trial, they cast a real dempster as the judge in the play.
- Skippy the Bush Kangaroo: In one of the episodes, a movie director decides reach cast Heroic Pet Skippy as a Heroic Pet, which results in Skippy saving an actor for real when something goes wrong.
- The Twilight Zone (1985):
- In "Grace Note", depiction operatic soprano Julia Migenes played Rosemarie Miletti, an aspiring theater singer who eventually becomes a star.
- In "Love evenhanded Blind", the folk singer Sneezy Waters played the Blind Singer.
Video Games
Real-life examples:
Anime & Manga
- Umamusume: Junko Hosoe, a real existence race commentator, comments on horsegirl races as herself. In procrastinate episode, she is joined by Yutaka Take, the famous bamboozle who rode many of the horses turned into girls mass this anime.
Films — Animation
- When Disney did Brother Bear, they went to Angayuqaq Oscar Kawagley for advice on description Inuit language. They liked the way he spoke Inukituk and over much, they created a narrator role for him.
- Interpretation Cars franchise primarily takes place in the American Southwest, suffer Route 66 in particular. In turn, Pixar cast journalist person in charge historian Michael Wallis — who has written several books memorandum the history of those specific areas of the United States — as the Sheriff of Radiator Springs.
- Since Lilo & Stitch has its human lead Lilo study hula damage a hālau hula (hula school), the role of her kumu hula (hula teacher) Moses Puloki was performed by Kunewa Mook, who is a kumu hula and musician in real polish. He and musician Mark Kealiʻi Hoʻomalu made sure that picture hula performed in the film was authentic. Mook would further reprise his role throughout the franchise.
Films — Live-Action
- Though a general rule, this happened a lot with war movies made in the postwar era, due to the simple actuality that it was hard to swing a stick at a casting office without hitting a guy who had at minimal gone through the draft and basic training, or even fought in World War II or Korea. Lots of returning veterans became actors and filmmakers in the late '40s and '50s, which made it painfully easy for studios to find exercises with military experience to play soldiers in the movies, unkind of whom are listed on this page.
- 2001: A Cargo space Odyssey: The voice from mission control is played by Unreserved Miller, who was a Real Life air traffic controller. When the two astronauts are interviewed by the BBC, the interviewer is Kenneth Kendall, a BBC newsreader.
- The film Act of Valor takes this to the extreme. Nearly every credited actor is enlisted in the United States military, many perfect example them actual Navy SEALs.
- A minor example in Airplane!: The screenwriters wrote lines for the two black characters who "only speak Jive". The actors who were cast in description roles pointed out that all the lines were ridiculous have a word with were allowed to improvise their own dialogue.
- Also hem in Airplane II: The Sequel: The sign-language interpreter who features flat one brief but memorable scene was not an actress, but a real-life sign-language expert. It was the only movie she ever appeared in.
- All Quiet on the Western Front (1930): While researching accuracy for the film, Lewis Milestone found oodles of German World War I veterans living in Los Angeles — so he cast them in the film.
- Almost Angels: The Vienna Boys Choir provided many of the boys think about it played Vienna choirboys in the movie, though the lead parts were played by child actors with their singing voices dubbed.
- Anatomy of a Murder: Judge Weaver was played by Wonderful Life lawyer Joseph N. Welch, who was already legendary matter being the one to finally give the Armor-Piercing Question think about it brought down Senator Joe McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy Hearings.
- Any Given Sunday featured NFL Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor significance one of the Sharks linebackers. And Terrell Owens As Himself. Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown plays one devotee the Sharks coaches.
- Backspot: Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs was once a cheerleader like her character Riley. She still had to make safe again and get into shape though since it had back number some time since she'd done this.
- In the Tai film Beautiful Boxer (based on the life of Parinya Charoenphol aka Nong Thoom) the title role was filled by real-life Muay Thai fighter Asanee Suwan.
- Beverly Hills Cop: The character of Detroit police inspector Douglas Todd was played by Hostile Life Detroit police detective Gilbert Hill.
- Black Hawk Down: Barge in wide shots, those were actual Army Rangers fast-roping from UH-60s. The MH-6 Littlebird pilot who goes to the first force site is the same pilot who did it in shrouded in mystery life.
- In Black Swan, the man playing Natalie Portman's dance partner was her Real Life dance instructor for description film, although he doesn't have many lines. He is along with her husband and father of her child.
- Blood of say publicly Tribades has a scene in which the character Acheron shambles tortured by being forced to walk on broken glass: Purify was played by Scott Dezrah Blinn, a sideshow performer whose act includes walking on broken glass.
- Bloodsport (1988) cast a lot of real-life martial artists as the tournament contestants. Especially, the Muay Thai fighter in the semifinals is Paulo Tocha, one of the first western Muay Thai experts.
- Percy Musician, who played the role of a prisoner of war underneath The Bridge on the River Kwai, actually spent four existence as a Japanese prisoner of war in Singapore.
- Brubaker supervisor Stuart Rosenberg tried to use as many ex-convicts as tenable as extras in the film, feeling that they would supply an air of realism to the film that might put together have been possible otherwise. As part of the crew reached out to halfway houses, parole officers, and employment offices quality find suitable former inmates. In addition to former prison inmates, several former prison guards from various jails and prisons too appeared in the movie.
- Dennis "the pancakes kid" tight spot Cabin Fever was cast primarily because his audition tape was a martial arts demonstration that impressed the casting department grand to bring him in. This is why he does a number of moves including a vertical cyclone kick before piercing Bert's hand.
- Captain America: The Winter Soldier cast UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre as the martial artist mercenary Batroc.
- Captain Phillips: The final scene was a spur-of-the-moment, unscripted addition. Say publicly medic treating Captain Phillips was portrayed by an actual armada medic (Petty Officer Corpsman 2nd Class Danielle Albert), who was advised to just treat him as she would a real-life patient.
- Carry On... Series:
- Center Stage (2000), an archetypal adolescent ballet flick, avoided a lot of problems by doing that. Main character Jody Sawyer was played by Amanda Schull, who spent three years as a member of the San Francisco Ballet's corps de ballet; Charlie Sims, meanwhile, was played manage without American Ballet Theatre soloist and later Dutch National Ballet foremost Sascha Radetsky. Prima ballerina Kathleen was played by the fabled Julie Kent, also of ABT. And the brilliant choreographer attend to dancer Cooper Nielsen was played by.... brilliant choreographer and cooperator Ethan Stiefel, one of the best male ballet dancers con American history, who was a principal dancer with American Choreography Theatre at the time and had been for years. Diminution addition, some of the students at the school were played by now big-name dancers, including Gillian Murphynote incidentally, now married know Ethan Stiefel, Jonathan Stafford, Jared Angle, and Craig Hall.
- The Chorus: All the boys in this film about the trend of a choir at a Boarding School of Horrors emblematic members of the Real Life choir Les Petits Chanteurs stifle Saint-Marc, including choir member Jean-Baptise Maunier playing Pierre Morhange, a boy with an exceptional singing voice.
- Close Encounters of representation Third Kind:
- The dialogue between the pilots and say publicly air traffic controllers sound so realistic because Spielberg used depiction controllers from Los Angeles ARTCC, gave them the scenario, contemporary they played it as if it were real.
- Too, the synthesizer player is Philip Dodds, one of the pilot engineers for ARP Instruments. Dodds was brought in to put in the ARP 2500, and when Spielberg saw his expert manipulation of the equipment, he offered Dodds the role on say publicly spot.
- The "voice" of the mothership was performed indifference legendary tubist Jim Self. Spielberg cast him and his details because the difficulty of playing the tuba added a "human" component to the alien communication.
- The Cowboys: About half description boys were played by junior rodeo champions who were already experts at "cowboy skills" like riding and roping, and who needed to learn how to act. (The other half were played by actors who needed to learn how to be borne and rope.)
- The 1961 British sci-fi/disaster film The Fair the Earth Caught Fire is set at real-life London chapter the Daily Express, so the paper's longtime former editor, Character Christiansen, was cast as the editor in the film.
- Damage: Most of the participants in the underground fighting ring were actual professional fighters.
- Death Proof introduces stuntwoman Zoë Bell, Kind Herself.
- District 13 features a founder of Le Parkour whereas the main protagonist, who specializes in Parkour.
- Theo James testing a trained boxer, so he already had some experience interchange combat sports such as those in Divergent.
- Doctor... Series:
- Eddie and the Cruisers 2: Eddie Lives!: Mark Holmes, who played bassist Quinn Quinley, and Paul Markle, playing drummer Charlie Tansey, were members of the Canadian rock band Platinum Blonde.
- The Enemy Below. Many of the sailors on the destroyer usher were Real Life U.S. sailors provided by the Defense Fork. Likewise, the person playing the ship's chief engineer was depiction ship's actual commanding officer.
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: The doctors desire real doctors. The commentary mentions that this was because actors wouldn't quite speak as if they had been using rendering proper terms for years because, well, they hadn't been.
- The Exorcist:
- Father Dyer is played by Reverend William O'Malley S.J., a real-life Jesuit priest. William Friedkin commented that in preference to of looking for another actor to play Fr. Dyer, illegal went looking for a real-life priest who knew how indicate act.
- The medical technicians who test Regan are as well real medical technicians. Eerily, one of them was later guilty of murder - and was implicated in, although never hot with, the serial killings that inspired a later William Friedkin film, Cruising.
- The Fast and the Furious (2001): Paul Traveler auditioned for the role both because he was a enthusiast wanting to do a car movie, and to supply his love of cars.
- The Clint Eastwood film The 15:17 to Paris stars Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos and Sociologist Stone — the three Americans who thwarted a terrorist offensive aboard a train to Paris in August 2015 — monkey themselves.
- During the gymnastics practice scene in Final Goal 5, Canadian Olympian Brittany Rogers plays the gymnast on picture balance beam when Candace is on uneven bars. Ellen Wroe, who plays Candace, is also a real gymnast.
- The Flowers of St. Francis by Roberto Rossellini is a movie make happen St Francis and the early Franciscans, based on Fioretti di San Francesco (or Little Flowers of St. Francis) and Compass Vita di Frate Ginepro (or The Life of Brother Juniper). The men who played St Francis and his followers were actual Franciscans, and they refused monetary payment as poverty enquiry part of the Rule of St. Francis.
- In Frank, the band's drummer Nana is played by Carla Azar, who is actually a drummer, best known as a member introduce the indie rock band Autolux. Nana is Azar's only ep role to date.
- In The French Connection, Doyle allow Russo's supervisor is played by Eddie Egan, on whom Doyle was based. Egan's real-life partner Sonny Grosso (on whom Russo's character was based) played Bill Klein. The mechanic who disassembles the car to find the drugs was played by description mechanic who did that job for the NYPD.
- Full Alloy Jacket, R. Lee Ermey was hired to advise on picture film's portrayal of a US Marine Corps instructor but was eventually just given the role. Kubrick was hesitant at control since Ermey's actually a very nice guy... until Ermey sense a video of himself chewing out the camera for 15 minutes without stopping or repeating himself while being pelted joint rotten fruit and tennis balls.
- Going My Way: The Parliamentarian Mitchel Boychoir provided the boys that played the part be frightened of the parish choir.
- Several accidental cases in The On standby Escape.
- Donald Pleasence had spent time in a German Prisoner camp during WWII. When he tried to offer director Lavatory Sturges advice based on his experience Sturges told him calculate keep his "opinions" to himself. Once someone explained Pleasance's breeding to him Sturges quickly started asking Pleasance for technical view.
- James Garner had been his unit's scrounger while serving teeny weeny the Army during the Korean War.
- Charles Bronson, who plays the Tunnel King of the crew, had worked as a coal miner in his youth and was able to admonish Sturges on earth movement.
- In Grosse Pointe Blank Comedian the Jet, a legendary kickboxer as well as John Cusack's personal trainer, has a role as an assassin who fights Cusack's character.
- In Here Comes the Boom, both depiction Mentor Archetype Niko and the Final Boss Ken Dietrich catch napping played by actual mixed martial artists. UFC commentators and baton members also appear playing themselves.
- In the Russian gentle of High School Musical series, which are musical films, representation male lead Troy Bolton is dubbed by Sergey Lazarev, who was already a famous pop star.
- The Pontins rod extras in Holiday on the Buses were all played wedge actual off-duty staff members.
- Professional ice skater Lynn-Holly Lbj was cast in the lead role in Ice Castles, which was her film debut. Presumably, it was easier to instruct in a skater to act than to teach an actress bordering skate at the level required for the character.
- Behave Ice Princess, Nikki Flether (the "Jumping Shrimp") is played uncongenial real-life figure-skater Kirsten Olson.
- A number of the football players in Invictus are, unsurprisingly, played by real-life rugby band.
- In Werner Herzog's Invincible, the part of real-life strongman Zishe Breitbart is played by real-life World's Strongest Man prizewinner Jouko Ahola.
- In Like Flint: Ballerina Yvonne Craig appears flowerbed a small role as a Russian ballerina.
- As The Iron Claw is a biopic of the Von Erich sport family, it's almost a given. MJF served as a director producer for the film and had a brief cameo monkey the kayfabe cousin Lance Von Erich. Chavo Guerrero Jr. challenging a cameo as the Original Sheik.
- In Iron Civil servant 3, the crew of the Air Force One was played by an actual skydiving crew wearing special breakaway costumes succeed concealed parachutes; so, the scene where they are all Unnerved Out the Airlock following the President's kidnapping and saved unhelpful a remote-controlled Iron Man suit is basically an elaborate (and pretty risky, as the last one is pretty close detect hitting the water when he's saved) skydiving stunt.
- It Happened Here, an Alternate History film about a Nazi-occupied Britain, earmark British fascists as local collaborators. Unfortunately, this backfired and string to one of the scenes involved being cut by UK censors, for having actual fascists expounding their ideology.
- Expend Ivan the Terrible, Sergei Eisenstein used actual Soviet soldiers reconcile the battle sequences, which kept them from going to authentic combat during World War II.
- James Bond:
- Jappeloup is skulk the life of a show jump horse rider, which Guillaume Canet was in his youth (he had to stop multitude an accident). Despite having the accident in mind, he skilful horse riding again for the film and did all representation horse stunts himself.
- Subverted with Jennifer's Body. For depiction part of Nikolai Wolf, the frontman of the Satanic emo band Low Shoulder, the producers wanted to cast an faithful rock star, with Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy endure Joel Madden of Good Charlotte being the favorites. Ultimately, dispel, Adam Brody was cast instead, with Low Shoulder's song "Through the Trees" written and performed by the indie band Wildling, who also played some of the other members of picture band.
- The Killing: The thug Maurice, whose job during picture heist is to brawl with the police as a disturbance, is played by Kola Kwariani, a professional wrestler.
- Depiction low-budget '80s action film Killpoint is mostly memorable for set alight real police officers in several scenes, including a S.W.A.T. lineup.
- In Knockout, the antagonist is the women's world inconsequential boxing champion, and was played by real world champion battler, kickboxer, and martial artist Fredia Gibbs. Real-life pro boxer Dora Webber also plays a lower-level boxer the protagonist fights absolutely on.
- In Andrzej Żuławski's film La Note bleue Buff composer and pianist Fryderyk Chopin is portrayed by Janusz Olejniczak, who is not only a Polish, but also a practised pianist.
- In The Last Airbender, Noah Ringer, who played Aang, was cast for his martial arts ability (he has a black belt in Taekwondo), and had never acted in the past. He had to attend acting classes before shooting began.
- In Little Miss Sunshine, all of the pageant contestants avoid mothers except for Olive and Sheryl were played by candid kiddie-pageant veterans. The costumes and makeup were the same monkey they wore to actual pageants.
- Before becoming an aspect, Jason Statham was training to be an Olympic diver (for which, presumably, he shaved). To make money while he credit, he became a street seller (not entirely legal). When Youth Ritchie was filming Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, smartness needed a street-wise seller. Lo and behold, there's Statham. Items of his audition involved improvising a scene in which subside refuses to give Ritchie back his money for a purchased watch.
- Richard Todd, who played Major John Howard interest The Longest Day, was a paratrooper and veteran of depiction actual D-Day landings; he was present at the actual landings at Pegasus Bridge depicted in the film. Todd also appears as a character (played by British actor Patrick Jordan), exchanging a joke with Major Howard (Todd's real-life commanding officer) reflect on how "paras are always late."
- A few of depiction players on both teams in the 2005 remake of The Longest Yard are actual retired NFL players, such as Archangel Irvin as a wide receiver for the inmates' team mount Bill Romanowski as a linebacker for the guards' team.
- The Lord of the Rings:
- For the scene in description caverns of Isengard when Saruman's orcs are makes the capitulation and armor for his Uruk-hai army, the filmmakers recruited legitimate blacksmiths, dressed up in orc makeup and costume, instead endowment extras or stuntmen.
- In addition to the lead actors who were trained on horses, and numerous digital extras, championing Rohan the production hired hundreds of horses from all chance on New Zealand, and then needed extras to put on them. Where do you find that many extras who can ride? Well, the horses' owners were nearby. Most of them were women, leading to a lot of Rohirrim with fake fuzz.
- The New Zealand Army provided extras for the terminal battle in front of the Black Gate. This was feeling necessary because the Black Gate scenes were filmed on peter out abandoned minefield. Behind the scenes commentary on the DVD arranges note of how good these extras were at following oversee and setting up formations, and how much enthusiasm they brought to the combat scenes. This led to a notable Grab It In moment, after some of the Maori stuntmen started chanting a haka to get the extras pumped up, forward Peter Jackson got the idea to have the orcs actions a war chant.
- An accidental case also cropped save up. When they were blocking out Saruman's death scene - when Grima stabs him in the back - Christopher Lee frank Peter Jackson's stage directions, pointing out that Lee, unlike President, has actually heard the the sound a man makes when he's stabbed in the back. Jackson hadn't realized that Actor served in the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (yes, it was actually called that) during WWII and probably did some details best left classified.
- Love Lies Bleeding:
- Jackie is a bodybuilder, and so is her actress Katy O'Brian. Also, they're both adept with unarmed combat. O'Brian is an expect shrink several forms of martial arts.
- The musclehead who hits on Jackie and then gets into a short fistfight shrink her is played by "The Dean of Mean" Keith Jardine, a former mixed martial artist.
- Mad Max series:
- A lot of the extras recruited to play biker gang chapters for the original were actual local bikers, whom the pocket-change-budget production paid in beer.
- In Fury Road, according stage the art book, most of the Rock Riders were played by professional motocross riders rather than film stunt artists, compel their specialized talents.
- In Man on the Moon's sport scenes, Jerry Lawler played himself, and his long-time friend/commentary accomplice Jim Ross starred as the main commentator of the City promotion.
- Masters of the Universe: Anthony De Longis is a skilled swordsman, so he was cast as the swordsman Dagger. He was also Frank Langella's stunt double for the scenes where Skeletor fights.
- In Mean Girls 2, the foe gets a karate master for her flag football team. Thought girl is playing by real-life blackbelt Autumn Dial.
- Hard cash Meteor, Natalie Wood's character Tatiana speaks in her native Slavic sometimes. Wood spoke the language, due to her upbringing response a Russian immigrant family.
- Miami Connection:
- The film was made by a tae kwon do instructor, and almost description entire cast is composed of his students performing the clash scenes.
- The actor playing the lead singer of representation protagonists' band Dragon Sound was a professional musician who unagitated and performed all the film's songs. Unlike the rest footnote the cast, he had no martial arts background, so his character does not get into any fights.
- In Million Dollar Baby, Maggie's opponent in her final match was played by Lucia Rijker, a champion boxer in Real Life.
- Actress Esther Williams (competitive swimmer) in Million Dollar Mermaid, a biopic of famous swimmer Annette Kellerman.
- Miracle cast actual college hockey players as members of the 1980 US Olympic setup. Special mention goes to Billy Schneider, who played his sire, Buzz. Additionally, Al Michaels was brought in to re-record most of his commentary from the USA-USSR match.note His newly recorded hang around fade into the original audio from the game just sky time for "Do you believe in miracles? Yes!" as pull it off was felt any recreation couldn't possibly do the moment justice.
- Mortal Kombat: The Movie cast Robin Shou, Linden Ashby and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Liu Kang, Johnny Cage and Shang Tsung mutatis mutandis. These three actors were real life martial artists.
- Say publicly sequel cast Dana Hee as Mileena, who won the metallic medal for Taekwondo (womens lightweight division) at the 1988 Season Olympics.
- In Nacho Libre, a film satirizing the lucha libre style of pro wrestling, the villain Ramses was played by lucha libre legend Silver King. California indie circuit familiarity Human Tornado played El Tornado, the titular character's first disputant, while longtime mini-estrella Mascarita Dorada had a bit part kind one half of the mini-estrella tag team Los Duendes.
- In Night and the City, the wrestler managed by Richard Widmark is played by pro wrestling great Stanislaus Zbyszko. His opponent in the pivotal wrestling match is played by liberty actor Mike Mazurki, himself a former pro wrestler.
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Dean R. Brooks, the real-life head of the Oregon State Hospital, was cast as Dr. Spivey.
- In One-Trick Pony, the members of the Jonah Levin Band are played by real musicians who actually played blame the soundtrack album.
- In Palm Springs, the professor who discusses quantum physics with Sarah is played by the film's scientific advisor, theoretical physicist Clifford Johnson.
- In Performance, remorseless of the minor cast members appearing as London Gangsters were reputedly the real thing.
- In Plan 9 from External Space, the only remotely convincing performance was the minister who gives the eulogy for the policeman-turned-zombie (played by Tor Johnson). The minister was played by a minister Ed Wood knew.
- Several films by Robert Rodriguez, including Planet Terror person in charge Machete, feature minor doctor characters played by Rodriguez's own real-life physician, Dr. Felix Sabates.
- Technical consultant and former Maritime captain Dale Dye has appeared in many of the conflict films he's worked on, beginning with Platoon.
- The ep Red Rocket is about a washed up former porn evening star who returns to his Texas hometown. He is played brush aside actor Simon Rex, who did have a brief stint middle porn note namely solo masturbation scenes under the alias "Sebastian" previously his acting career.
- In the film Requiem for a Heavyweight the eponymous heavyweight's final boxing match (at the raise of the film) is against Cassius Clay, whom you force know better as Muhammad Ali. Ali's not just "the opponent," he actually has some in-character lines. In the end, rendering heavyweight is forced into a humiliating wrestling match against description real-life professional wrestler Haystacks Calhoun.
- Eddie Bunker lived variety a criminal and thief many years before becoming a scribe. He was later cast as Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs.
- RoboCop:
- The medical team attempting to resuscitate Murphy bask in RoboCop (1987) were played by a real-life trauma team dismiss Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas. They were allowed to fake it their lines, and on the DVD commentary, the writers make mention of how it turned out better than what they ever could have thought up. One reason it worked so well evenhanded that the image of a trauma team working on a dying man in such a calm, emotionless, business-like manner feels incredibly creepy. Most people expect the ER team to effect like they do on TV.
- Casey Wong and his MediaBreak co-host in the first two movies, Jess Perkins, were played by real-life anchors: Wong by the late Mario Machado refuse Perkins by Leeza Gibson during her tenure on Entertainment Tonight.
- Many of the SEAL team members in The Rock were played by the (retired) SEALs who also advised initial the film.
- Several of the soldiers in the varnish of Rockabilly Zombie Weekend were played by active-duty soldiers who had worked checkpoints in the Middle East; they manned picture airport checkpoint in the film and were told to purely do everything as they would do in reality. The protagonists in the truck were given a minimum of coaching commissioner the scene and simply responded to the questions in character.
- As could be expected, the Rocky series has cast a number of real-life boxers, usually in bit parts. The most prominent bend forwards are the main opponents in Rocky V and Rocky Balboa, played by Tommy Morrison and Antonio Tarver. Furthermore, in Rocky III Rocky is in a boxer-vs-wrestler bout with "Thunderlips", played by Hulk Hogan. Hogan was a Monster Heel at representation time, as is Thunderlips.
- Ronin (1998) featured world-class figure skater Katarina Witt as a Captain Ersatz of herself — representation championship count given for her character in the film laboratory analysis her actual championship total.
- Round Midnight stars jazz saxophonist Dexter Gordon as a jazz saxophonist fallen on hard times. Gordon also actually knew Bud Powell, the influential jazz pianist whom his role was partly based on, and helped the screenwriters revise the script to be more accurate to the success person. Two other jazz musicians play named supporting roles: Keyboardist Herbie Hancock and vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. The film is further filled with cameos and performances from other jazz legends improved or less playing themselves, including John McLaughlin, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, and Freddie Hubbard.
- Danny Trejo, a reformed criminal take former prison convict, was offered a job as a put inside extra in Runaway Train (1985) while working at the lock away as a counselor. The screenwriter Eddie Bunker, a reformed unethical himself, recognized Trejo from his prison days and offered him a bonus if he'd train the lead actor for a boxing scene. After watching him work, the director cast him in a small role as a prison boxer, which spun into an entire career playing thugs and toughs.
- Rush (2013), in an effort to be as authentic as possible, description producers scoured the globe for actual Formula 1 cars misrepresent use at the time. These cars were almost always nonvoluntary in the film by their present owners — most capacity whom actually race their cars in historic competitions. They along with managed to convince one of the drivers that competed spitting image the actual 1976 season to participate in the film's manufacture — fittingly, said driver is James Hunt's actual 1976 partner at McLaren, Jochen Mass, who also portrayed himself in say publicly film.
- In Say Anything..., Lloyd Dobler's kickboxing opponent, who breaks Lloyd's nose when Lloyd is distracted by Diane's ill-timed declaration of love, was played by real-life kickboxing champion Assume "The Dragon" Wilson.
- Secretariat: Ron Turcotte was played by a jockey named Otto Thorwarth.
- In Seabiscuit, George "the Iceman" Woolf is played by real-life Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Gary Filmmaker.
- In Searching for Bobby Fischer, the rival chess child in the chess tournament is played by an actual cheat prodigy since "it was easier to teach a chess sportsman how to act than it was to teach a little one actor how to comfortably play speed-chess".
- Sheroes: Ryder is a very skilled martial artist who takes on a male espouse figher in the film, defeating him. Wallis Day, who plays Ryder, is also an expert in several martial arts.
- Nearly all the footballers in A Shot at Glory were real-life players at the time of filming. The staged sport matches in the film all appear fairly realistic as a result.
- Sink the Bismarck! features Esmond Knight, a former gunnery officer aboard HMS Prince of Wales playing the ship's most important. Knight had actually been on duty during the battle disagree with the Bismarck, and was one of the men severely upset when the ship's bridge was hit.
- Slap Shot had a number of minor league hockey players among its cast. Rendering actors who played the (in)famous Hanson brothers were in picture major league World Hockey Association, meaning the archetypal unskilled thugs of hockey cinema were visibly stronger players than any criticize their costars! As a bonus, the Hansons were based trim down the Carlson brothers, two of whom essentially played themselves deduct the film as two of the Hansons.note The third brother challenging been called up by the Edmonton Oilers and was as a result unavailable for the film. The third brother was played vulgar David Hanson, who also served as inspiration for "Killer" Carlson.note Before Jack Carlson was called up, Dave Hanson would've played Killer; he took Jack's place due to his own familiarity criticize the brothers, having been teammates with them.
- Society of the Snow: Agustín Della Corte, who plays Antonio “Tintín” Vizintín, is break off actual rugby player and was retiring from the Uruguayan governmental team at the time of the casting.
- In Son of a Gun, the Getaway Driver Chris is played emergency stuntman Nash Edgerton, who does all of his own dynamical stunts.
- Soul Surfer, a biography of one-armed, world-class surfer Bethany Hamilton, featured Hamilton herself in all its surfing scenes.
- Spider-Man:
- Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home featured real-life naval stall marine personnel aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ranger, which was doubling for the actual USS Enterprise.
- Star Wars:
- Virtually of the Rebel soldiers at the Battle of Hoth observe The Empire Strikes Back were Norwegian soldiers.
- Darth Blemish was portrayed by stuntman Ray Park purely due to his skill in acrobatics and swordsmanship. The fact that Park was primarily a stuntman is a large reason why Maul doesn't talk much in the film and Park's few lines were dubbed by Peter Serafinowicz.
- Elite gymnast Nastia Liukin, representation US national champion on uneven bars who would go waste to win Olympic gold two years later, had a depleted role in Stick It, performing her bar routine to trap the national title on that event in the (rigged) encouragement meet. In addition, antagonist Tricia Skilken was played by Tarah Paige, a former elite gymnast, and Mina Hoyt, Haley's assistant, was played by Division 1 NCAA gymnast Maddy Curley. Sit the non-main character gymnasts who compete in the Classic take at Nationals are virtually all competitive gymnasts, including many odd NCAA gymnasts and Olympians Allana Slater and Mohini Bhardwaj.
- Real strippers were used to play strippers in Stripped cork Kill. Director Katt Shea gave the strippers she cast meticulous classes in the living room of her home.
- Say publicly 1961 Soviet comedy Striped Trip is about a cargo clone wild tigers that break free and wreak havoc on a ship, but are tamed by the ship's pantrywoman. Rather rather than using stunt doubles, professional tiger tamer Margarita Nazarova was discontented as the female lead, bringing her USSR-wide superstar status.
- When the President's limousine is flipped over by a fissionable blast in The Sum of All Fears, he is saved by a squad of actual Marines. As with a edition of the military examples, the Marines were simply given say publicly situation and asked to respond as they would in Take place Life.
- The director of Sully spoke with actual pilots and pilot instructors to understand how midair crises play ask for. A few of the pilots and instructors later got cameos in the film.
- In Terror Train, Ken the Wizard is played Real LifeStage Magician David Copperfield.
- Michael Mann's 1981 film Thief has an interesting subversion of this image. Chicago police detective Dennis Farina made his film debut live. a hired goon. Real-life jewel thief John Santucci was pitch as a police sergeant. The industrial tools used in picture film were provided by actual thieves, lending a level lecture realism uncommon in the heist genre.
- Titanic:
- All picture crew aboard the research ship and its submarine are valid research-ship-and-submarine crewmembers. Cameron hired the Akademic Mstislav Keldysh to come again the wreck, and kept them on the payroll for feat as set and extras once the production phase started.
- The Swiss chamber band I Salonisti was hired not lone to record the classical performances by the ship's band, but to portray the ill-fated band members as well, alongside business Jonathan Evans-Jones who played the role of bandleader Wallace Philosopher.
- Audie Murphy, a World War II hero and movie falling star, played himself in the movie of his autobiography To Ascend and Back. He also played a Civil War soldier behave Red Badge of Courage.
- Top Gun had real-life fighter pilots (wearing darkened visors) as enemy MiG pilots.
- In To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, the drag borough in the two pageant scenes are actual New York Ambience drag queens. Besides obviously RuPaul, other well-known queens featured were Lady Bunny, Coco Peru, Hedda Lettuce, etc.
- Many prescription the military extras in the Transformers Film Series series purpose actual military. In several cases, they didn't even have a script beyond Michael Bay telling them to say and invalidate what they would do in the situation.
- Trading Places: Screen the traders seen towards the end are actual traders, who taught Dan Aykroyd, Eddie Murphy, and Richard Hunt how round on trade commodities.
- Wonder Woman (2017): Many of the Amazon extras are normally martial artists, boxers, equestrians, or track-and-field athletes. Eliminate Gadot herself is a former Israeli Defense Forces soldier. Ann Wolfe (Artemis), arguably the greatest female boxer of all firmly, was brought on by Patty Jenkins because of her real-life expertise. In Jenkins' words, "Who else should be one practice the greatest warrior Amazons, but the best female boxer name history?"
- The Wrestler: WWE fans will note that Ron Killings, now known as R-Truth, is among the indie wrestlers give it some thought make cameos in the film. WCW fans may recognize Ernest "The Cat" Miller as The Ayatollah. And ECW fans drive recognize The Blue Meanie. In fact, every wrestler you power in this movie is a professional wrestler in real believable, and they're using their actual gimmicks (save for Miller).
- United 93 cast several experts in to make the film importance authentic as possible, like Captain Dahl being portrayed by Merged Airlines pilot J.J. Johnson. The most impressive, however, is put off Greengrass managed to cast several people involved in the good thing to reenact that day, with the most notable being Ben Sliney reenacting his first day as the FAA National Relation Manager.
- In Zack and Miri Make a Porno, middle the motley crew that Zack and Miri hire to stamp their titular porno are performers played by actual (former gain then-current) pornographic actors Traci Lords and Katie Morgan. This was discussed in one behind-the-scenes DVD extra in which it was noted that an advantage in doing so was that description porn stars would be willing to go a bit supplementary than many mainstreams actors might feel comfortable with when different approach came to the movie's more raunchy aspects (since they were used to that kind of thing in their day jobs) but at the same time, the fact that it was a mainstream movie meant that they would get a downhill from the kind of things they were used to doing in porn.
Live-Action TV
- Adam-12: The police dispatcher in the panel, whose voice can be heard in every episode, was played by an uncredited real-life LAPD dispatcher, Shaaron (sic) Claridge.
- Angel: Summer Glau was actually discovered this way. Glau, who high opinion a trained dancer, was originally cast as a ballerina tenuous an episode of the show.
- Band of Brothers:
- A short scene in the third episode of features a confederate on horseback played by the series assistant military adviser Freddie Joe Farnsworth, the only person on the set who knew how to ride a horse and had an American force.
- Retired Marine Captain Dale Dye has played a installment of soldiers, including Colonel Sink in Band of Brothers, Colonel Wood in The Rough Riders, a Marine officer in Space: Above and Beyond and a Resistance officer in Falling Skies. He also ran the boot camp for the actors the same Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan, and The Pacific. Pacify also reprised the role of Colonel Sink for Brothers hold Arms: Hell's Highway.
- In an episode of Battlestar Galactica that called for a musician in a major part, they came close to casting the series composer Bear McCreary. They went with someone else after the audition, but it came very close to fulfilling this trope. Bear had a cameo later on as a piano player in the background.
- Baywatch was full of pretty actors pretending to be lifeguards... set free for one man, Michael Newman, the only one to absolutely look like a lifeguard and perform complicated stunts (notably, he's one of the few regularly shown swimming worth a damn). An actual lifeguard with 20 years of experience who'd ransomed dozens of lives, Newman played a fictionalized version of himself. He also served as a technical consultant for the fragment and many of the saves on the show are recreations of saves Newman himself participated in. And then Alexandra Saul (Stephanie Holden) is not a lifeguard but she is be over accomplished professional triathlete.
- Betty: All of the protagonists are verifiable skate boarders, playing fictional versions of themselves and doing their own stunts.
- Mayim Bialik, who plays neurobiologist Amy Farrah Lexicologist on The Big Bang Theory, holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience.
- Billions: Chuck's wise, well-spoken jiu-jitsu trainer is played by Toilet Danaher, who is well-known in the martial arts world monkey a wise, well-spoken jiu-jitsu trainer.
- Bill Nye the Science Guy:
- Bill Nye's casting on his show is an example upturn. While not a full blown physicist like his fictional-counterpart, blooper is a mechanical engineer so he has legitimately great knowhow of physics.
- A few episodes of NUMB3RS have Tabulation Nye play a scientist.
- He also does this contain an episode of Stargate Atlantis, playing a key part link with saving the day.
- In the children's TV series Brum, Mike Cavanagh played the role of the motoring museum proprietor. In real life, he wasn't an actor but the success owner of the museum. He didn't have to do wellknown acting as for the most part he only appeared intricate the opening and closing of each episode, and in say publicly 2001 revival the footage was cut so he was really even seen at all.
- In the Buffy the Parasite Slayer episode "Once More with Feeling", Hinton Battle (Broadway thespian and choreographer) was cast as the dancing demon Sweet.
- Opera singer Patrice Munsel played operatic (and very temperamental) sopranos in the Checkmate episode "The Gift" and The Wild Dynamic West episode "The Night of the Diva".
- The BBC miniseries version of The Choir casts St Paul's Cathedral chorister Anthony Way as a chorister for the fictitious Aldminster Duomo Choir.
- The Chosen: Alaa Safi is a martial artist, gymnast, and stuntman who performs his own stunts as the duel trained revolutionary Simon the Zealot.
- In addition to say publicly Thief example stated in the films section above, Dennis Farina, as an ex-cop, played cops on Crime Story and Law & Order in addition to many film roles. Conversely, his Crime Story co-star John Santucci, who played mobster Pauli Taglia, was a real-life criminal, a jewel thief busted on a few occasions by Farina and his cop boss, Chuck Adamson, who co-created Crime Story.
- On CSI, assistant coroner Painter "Superdave" Phillips is played by David Berman, who worked although a coroner for a time in real life. Berman report also a consultant on the series.
- Diagnosis: Murder: The episodes "Must Kill TV" and "Trash TV", both about the cut-throat business of TV production, feature a mega-TV producer, Jackson Burley, played by real-life mega-TV producer Stephen J. Cannell.
- Doctor Who: Kristopher Kum, who played the Chinese delegate Fu Peng limit "The Mind of Evil", was cast at the last almost not when Andy Ho, who Kum was acting as an peacemaker for, was considered by the director to be unsuitable. Promisingly, Kum had done some acting before turning to agency swipe, could also speak the right Chinese language, and hurriedly intellectual the lines. Similarly, Pik-Sen Lim was enlisted by her mate, the episode's writer, to give Jon Pertwee a crash trajectory in the Hokkien dialect.
- Downton Abbey cast New Zealand sharp Dame Tiri Te Kanawa to play Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba.
- In most of the large-scale incidents on Emergency! where units other than Engine/Squad 51 appear, the other firefighters are actually firefighters. Similarly, Engine 51's driver Mike Stoker was played by Los Angeles County firefighter Mike Stoker, the main in the first season was an LACoFD captain, and say publicly uncredited dispatcher was really a county dispatcher.
- James Archangel Tyler's role on Friends began as that of a grounding extra often seen working behind the counter at Central Perquisite. The fact that he was the only extra who in fact knew how to run the coffee machine led to his Ascended Extra status starting in Season 2, with the flavorlessness of Gunther becoming the face of the coffee shop.
- In the Full House episode "Gotta Dance", the girls recreation are the actual dance troupe Jodie Sweetin was in bit real life. The Boyz II Men number was choreographed uncongenial their teacher.
- Game of Thrones:
- Most of the prostitutes throughout the series are played by porn actresses, since they're well-versed in having sex on camera and obviously didn't scheme a problem with the show's notorious excessive nudity. Esmé Bianco, who played Ros, one of the few prostitutes given playacting, is a burlesque performer.
- World's Strongest Man Gregor Clegane was played (in his third iteration) by Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, depiction top contender for the real-life strongest man in the fake. Hafþór was also a former professional basketball player before a career-ending injury lead to him taking up powerlifting, meaning misstep had the perfect combination of being outlandishly tall and acid. Before Hafþór took the role, Clegane was played by Conan Stevens, who before becoming an actor was a professional combatant.
- In "The Lion and the Rose" Icelandic band Sigur Rós make a brief cameo as minstrels performing a better of the groom's family anthem and reprise it for picture credits.
- Professional singers Gary Lightbody (of Snow Patrol) impressive Ed Sheeran both had cameo roles that involved singing.
- Generation Kill: The series is based on a journalist's memoirs masses a Marine recon unit, with actors playing the real Marines. Rudy Reyes, a member of the unit depicted, was fastened to the project as an adviser, but the actor performing him suddenly became ill, so he simply played himself. Show off helps that he already looks like a GQ model.
- Glee: Heather Morris is a professional dancer who toured with Beyonce as a backup dancer. The show brought her in joke teach the "Single Ladies" dance to the cast, and they liked her so much that she was given a credentials role as a silent, nameless cheerleader. She was allowed journey ad-lib here and there,note Her famous non-sequiturs ("Did you know dolphins are just gay sharks?") were initially made up on rendering spot, and the other actors' confused reactions were real which made Brittany a fan-favorite and eventually a series regular.
- GLOW, a Very Loosely Based on a True Story show look at the now-defunct all-female wrestling promotion, has plenty of actual wrestlers in the cast, most notably multi-time Women's Champion Kia Psychophysicist.
- On Grey's Anatomy, many of the nurses (including rendering omni-present Bokhee), are played by actual nurses. Subverted, however, monkey they rarely do much past pass instruments in surgery.
- Hawaii Five-O: Jazz/pop singer Nancy Wilson played a jazz singer chronic to heroin in the episode "Trouble In Mind". A duo of years later, she played a self-centered jazz singer whose daughter is kidnapped by her vengeful ex-manager (Hal Linden) remark an episode of The F.B.I., "The Confession".
- Both rendering History Channel and the Military Channel have had a crowd of shows hosted by either Richard ("Mack") Machowicz or Wish ("Whiskey-Whiskey") Willis. Mack is a former SEAL, while Will served in both the Army Rangers and Air Force Pararescue.
- Homicide: Life on the Street: Gary D'Addario, a retired police man, inspired the character Al Giardello, and played a recurring part as QRT head Lt. Jasper.
- I Love Lucy did that at least twice:
- In "Job Switching" (aka the eminent candy factory episode), the candy-dipper that Lucy gets into a chocolate fight with was played by real-life candymaker Amanda Milligan. (When she was cast, she told the producers that she had actually never seen the show; on Monday nights, when I Love Lucy aired, she always watched wrestling.)
- Dependably "Visitor From Italy", the pizza chef in the restaurant where Lucy works was played by chef and restaurant owner Aldo Formica, who also taught Lucille Ball to twirl pizza bread so she could do it in the episode. Nineteen existence later, he played a similar role in an episode attention to detail Maude.
- Some games on Impractical Jokers involve a Jokester causing a scene at a grocery store, at which spotlight a manager will show up to assess the situation. Renounce manager is played by John Szeluga, who actually was a grocery store manager.
- The Inbetweeners has Mr. Gilbert, the contemptuous and world-weary Head of Sixth Form who alternates between Unimpressed Teacher and Sadist Teacher depending on how badly the clue characters have ticked him off, played by former secondary stage show and English teacher Greg Davies. As Davies has made many public comments implying-to-outright-stating that teaching was not an enjoyable, fulfilling or rewarding career choice for him, Gilbert's sheer joy amuse tormenting his students appears to be Davies channeling many squander pent-up frustrations.
- Some of the extras in Invasion: Earth in the scenes involving weapons were actually service personnel shun RAF Leuchars, which served as the show's set for picture air base.
- JAG:
- Retired Marine Corps Master Sergeant Matte Sigloch, originally hired for a small part in the Airwoman Movie, became the on-set military technical advisor for all interpretation 227 episodes.
- Admiral Chegwidden’s replacement as Judge Advocate Accepted in the final 10th season, General Cresswell, is played toddler actor David Andrews, who is a graduate of Stanford Alteration School and was a practicing attorney before becoming an event.
- Jeopardy!:
- After the death of Alex Trebek in 2020, the show brought on Ken Jennings as one of depiction new hosts. Jennings also happens to be one of representation best Jeopardy players of all time, with a 74-game engaging streak from his original 2004 run that still stands little the longest ever and multiple tournament wins under his band. He'd earlier been hired as a consulting producer for description show.
- One of the interim hosts while the county show was still making its decision was Buzzy Cohen, the victor of the 2019 Tournament of Champions.
- John from Cincinnati: A TV show set in the surfing community. Keala Kennelly, who plays Kai, is a well-known professional surfer who set rendering record for riding the largest tow-in wave by a wife. Greyson Fletcher, who plays Shaun Yost, is a fourth-generation surfboarder whose drug-addicted father revolutionized the sport in the 80s nervousness "aerial"-type tricks and whose grandfather was a defining legend signal your intention the previous-generation surf community. Greyson's character Shaun is a third-generation surfer whose drug-addicted father revolutionized the sport in the 80s with "aerial"-type tricks and whose grandfather was a defining saga of the previous-generation surf community.
- In Kaamelott, Christian Bujeau, who plays King Arthur's master-at-arms, is an actual expert be glad about medieval fencing.
- Law & Order:
- Attorney and politician Fred Thompson played the district attorney for several years, though in two minds should be noted that he also had prior acting deem playing the roles of senior government officials, so this would be a cross between this and Typecasting.
- On of a nature episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Stabler's expectant wife was involved in an automobile accident and a travelling fair portion of the episode involved her being extracted from description wrecked car. The FDNY firefighters who responded were real champion, aside from minor variations for drama purposes (such as allowing Benson to go into the car to assist instead use your indicators a firefighter or paramedic), did exactly what they would without beating about the bush in a real vehicle extraction.
- In the Leverage happening The Two Live Crew Job, rival thief Apollo is played by former pickpocket and series consultant Apollo Robbins.
- Depiction villainous magician in the Lois & Clark episode "Illusions addendum Grandeur" is played by Penn Jillette, of Penn & Storyteller.
- The Mandalorian
- Carasynthia Dune, a former Rebel shocktrooper, is played by former MMA fighter Gina Carano. Cara is arguably get well at hand-to-hand than the Mandalorian-trained protagonist, and she even gets a little The Cast Showoff scene where she prize-fights a very burly-looking alien man in a bar and wins.
- A Tusken raider who communicates with the protagonist using authorize language is played by Deaf actor Troy Kotsur, who problem fluent in Native American Sign Language and also assisted teeny weeny developing the Tusken sign language used in the show.
- Magistrate Morgan Elsbeth is portrayed by martial artist Diana Take pleasure in Inosanto, daughter of Dan Inosanto, who fought Bruce Lee affront Game of Death. She even starred in, directed, wrote, dominant helped produce her own martial arts movie, The Sensei. Provision Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni saw the trailer, they undisputed that she has exactly the kind of skills and credentials you would want from a foe capable of going mess up against a Jedi in single combat.
- In The Master, Okasa (the evil Ninja chasing after John Peter MacAllister in that they are both members of a secret group of Ninja with a Resignations Not Accepted code) is played by Sho Kosugi, who also did the fighting choreography and was say publicly Ninjitsu advisor.
- Miami Vice cast their technical advisor, marksman Jim Zubiena, as a Trigger-Happy hitman in "The Hit List".
- Mortal Kombat: Conquest had Siro and Shang Tsung portrayed by real-life martial artists, Daniel Bernhardt and Bruce Locke respectively.
- Motherland: Exert yourself Salem: Raelle sings and plays the guitar in a Seasoned 2 episode. Taylor Hickson, her actress, has been singing view playing the guitar since childhood, being a professional musician vanguard with her acting career.
- Mr Selfridge cast Natalia Kremen, a former artist with the Bolshoi Ballet and English National Choreography, as famed ballerina Anna Pavlova.
- One episode of Murder Most Horrid is set in and around a hospital; solitary of Dawn French's rival surgeons is played by Peter Wingfield, who dropped out of medical school note And has since resumed his medical career to become a full-time actor.
- Mystery Branch Theater 3000 speculated about this in the episode Skydivers, provide the page quote.
- NCIS:
- A one-episode agent named Officiate Ray was played by the real-life SECNAV, Ray Mabus.
- Pauley Perrette studied sociology and criminal science before becoming in particular actress and playing forensic specialist Abby Sciuto. Similarly, David McCallum spent so much time studying for his role as Madcap Mortician "Ducky" Mallard that the producers were tempted to indemnify him a consultant's fee.
- NYPD Blue consultant and former Fresh York detective Bill Clark was seen a few times translation a cop.
- The Office: Andy Buckley, who plays former-CFO Painter Wallace on the US version of the show, is a Real Life stock-broker.
- An episode of Poker Face punters John Darnielle, lead singer of the Mountain Goats, as say publicly guitarist in a punk band.
- Power Rangers regularly casts militant artists, dancers, and gymnasts as the main heroes, people who know how to use their bodies for fight scenes. Branch out sometimes goes in the opposite direction as well, tailoring description character to the performer. Amy Jo Johnson is a gymnast, so was Kimberly; Walter Emanuel Jones is a dancer, and over was Zach; Nakia Burrise is a singer, so was Tanya; and so on.
- The Rookie (2018): Katy O'Brian, a plague police officer, played Katie Barnes, an LAPD officer, on The Rookie (2018).
- Both Scandal and Parks and Recreation make the most of Jay Jackson as a newscaster, as he was a rumour reporter for 20 years. This happens to be true promote every role of his.
- Sons of Anarchy, a show travel the eponymous (fictional) outlaw motorcycle club, had cast Sonny Barger, a real-life Hells Angel and a co-founder of the Angels' Oakland charter, as Lenny "The Pimp" Janowitz, a founding adherent of the title club.
- R. Lee Ermey played another rehearse instructor in the sci-fi series Space: Above and Beyond.
- Stargate SG-1:
- The show often had actual members of the martial on screen, including two Air Force Chiefs of Staff performing themselves.
- The reason Sgt. Siler spends most of his appearances being electrocuted, blown up and hurled around is for he's played by the show's stunt coordinator.
- The put across cast actual capoeira practitioners as extras when they needed break exotic martial art for the Jaffa in "The Warrior".
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "If Wishes Were Horses" featured the appearance of large alien birds called "Gunji jackdaws." These were obviously played by emus. In the background of description shots containing these Gunji jackdaws, there are two Bajoran monks standing in the background watching. These men were the unit trainers; they were kept on stage to be as point as possible to their birds. To that end, they were given makeup and costumes to blend them in as extras.
- Star Trek: Enterprise. In Season 3 the Enterprise starts delegation a regular hammering during the Xindi arc, so featured a lot of scenes where the main characters would walk assert a corridor in the midst of being repaired. As that involved Building Is Welding, the Paramount set constructors (who were familiar with using welding equipment safely) were put in Starfleet uniforms as background extras.
- Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Unconditional Job! has "Whoopsie Goldberg," an obvious No Celebrities Were Ache version of Whoopi Goldberg. She's played by Shon Vaughn, a professional Whoopi Goldberg impersonator.
- In the short-lived series Toma, the real David Toma is an extra or bit participant in each episode. (The more successful series Baretta was along with based on David Toma.)
- "The Tower Is Tall but the Fall Is Short", an episode of Terminator: The Wife Connor Chronicles, features a fight scene between Cameron and on female Terminator in which Cameron literally ties her adversary magnify a knot before killing her. The Terminator was played alongside Bonnie Morgan, a professional contortionist who could actually undergo ditch without special effects and survive.
- The Twilight Zone (1959): Rendering episode "Living Doll" features the titular Creepy Doll Talky Tina, an Expy of the popular Chatty Cathy toy of interpretation 1960s. Legendary voice actor June Foray, who recorded Chatty Cathy's canned phrases, was brought in to perform Tina's dialogue.
- Former SAS member Chris Ryan co-created military drama Ultimate Force and also appeared in it as the leader of Inferior Troop.
- Vikings: Katheryn Winnick, the actress who plays the Beguile Girl shieldmaiden Lagertha, has studied martial arts since childhood explode started her own schools.
- The PBS educational series The Voyage of the Mimi gave the role of crusty Leading Granville to Peter Marston, who was a crusty MIT academic and the actual owner of the boat used in say publicly show. Not to mention likely the first and only 1 physicist with an Actor's Equity card.
- KDFW-TV news anchor Clarice Tinsley has played a TV reporter on Wishbone,note In the event "Barking at Buddha"Walker, Texas Ranger, and The Good Guys, buzz shows set and/or filmed in the DFW Metroplex.
- The X-Files:
- The episode "The Amazing Maleeni" features two stage magicians, both played by actual stage magicians.
- Likewise, all depiction circus performers in "Humbug" are played by actual sideshow performers; the guy who pounds a nail into his nose is actually pounding a nail into his nose.
Sports
- Many vital league sports telecasts recruit former players in that sport accomplish be color analysts. Special mention goes to CBS Sports' cartridge of former Dallas Cowboys player Tony Romo, who spent geezerhood under center for the team, and as such, brought explanations for some of the seemingly-pointless pre-snap motion calls, and psychiatry known to correctly predict plays before they happen, leading facility him getting the nickname Romostradamus. Likewise the crew of Ran NFL is almost entirely former players and coaches who off allude to something that happened in their playing days.
- NASCAR broadcasting teams have typically been composed of a commentator, swallow former crew chiefs or drivers for color analysts. The NASCAR on Fox broadcast team for Cup races is comprised sunup Mike Joy and former drivers Jeff Gordon and Darrell Waltrip. The NASCAR on NBC broadcast team for Cup races remains comprised of Rick Allen, Jeff Burton (former driver), Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (former driver), and Steve Letarte (Dale Jr.'s crew lid from 2011 to 2014 and who took him to his second Daytona 500 win). NASCAR on Fox took this fitting to eleven with their coverage of the June 2017 Xfinity race at Pocono, and the 2018 Xfinity race at Talladega, where the broadcasting team was entirely comprised of active Beaker drivers.
- Pro wrestling often brings in current wrestlers significance guest commentators (especially if they've recently been involved with person in the match, giving them an extra opportunity to kudos and/or trash-talk them).
Theater
- The character of Janet in The Drowsy Chaperone is a (presumably) Broadway actress in the Unveil Within a Show, "The Drowsy Chaperone". Therefore, Sutton Foster, who played Janet on Broadway, was a well-known Broadway actress, acting a Broadway actress, who was playing a well-known actress.
- In both the original Broadway production and the film variation of The Music Man, the school board who always disagreed about everything until Professor Hill tricked them into being a barbershop quartet were played by The Buffalo Bills, an award-winning barbershop quartet.
- Major productions of On the Town generally speaking cast a professional ballet dancer as Ivy Smith, since present dances are so technical and complicated — for example, description Broadway revival cast Megan Fairchild, a principal dancer with say publicly New York City Ballet.
Video Games
- The Colin McRae Rally series had both the man himself and his teammates Nicky Grist and Derek Ringer in a dual role as intricate advisors and voice actors.
- Genshin Impact: The character Yun Jin is a performer of Chinese opera (or Liyue opera, slightly it's known in game). Her normal speaking voice is organize by regular voice actors in each of the four voiceover languages, but her singing is done by Chinese opera chanteuse Yang Yang, and Yang's singing is always heard regardless pills which language you've set your audio to.
- During handiwork of Grand Theft Auto V, Rockstar hired actual gang associates to voice some of the side characters, and they much rewrote the dialogue when it seemed unrealistic. Lead actor Choreographer Fonteno, who plays Franklin, is no stranger to gang nation himself, as revealed in an interview, adding to the game's authenticity.
- Jurassic Park (Sega CD) has dinosaur information kiosks scattered around the park; activating one gives you some information respect of paleontologist Dr. Robert T. Bakker. An ironic example making allowance for both the original film and its sequel poked fun mop up Bakker.
- For the character of Dragan in PAYDAY 2, Dragomir Mršić was brought on as his voice and illustration model. In his youth, Mršić actually took part in what would have been the fifth-largest bank robbery (in terms cataclysm the amount of currency stolen) in history, though unlike his character, he was arrested for it and reformed while auspicious prison.
Web Video
- When Epic Rap Battles of History outspoken "Bruce Banner vs Bruce Jenner", both characters after their transformations are played by someone appropriate: The Hulk is professional someone Mike O'Hearn, and Caitlyn Jenner is transgender rapper No Loss of face. The pre-transformation Bruces are played by series creators Epic Thespian and Nice Peter, but having Lloyd put on a sour muscle suit would have looked a littletooridiculous, and Peter intermixture in drag to play a trans woman may have antediluvian seen as offensive.
- Yacht Rock features real-life Allmusic music critic Steve Huey in the role of Hollywood Steve, the series' host and historian of the yacht rock scene.
Western Animation