8 Great Double Performances From A Single Actor

2) Nicolas Cage In Adaptation

Say what you like about Nicolas Cage, but the man is always more than up for a challenge when he’s met with one. And, predictably, Hollywood’s loopiest star throws himself into Spike Jonze’s Adaptation with full force.

The film is the result of a mind-bending Charlie Kaufman screenplay, in which Cage plays Kaufman adapting the novel The Orchid Thief, as well as Kaufman’s fictional layabout of a brother, Donald. As Charlie Kaufman, Cage is relatively Cage-y (though much more tuned-in than he is whenever he plays one of his ten-a-penny action movie heroes), all neuroses and odd verbal patterns. Donald is something different for the actor, though: a lovable, oafish dolt who seems to be able to put a positive spin on life wherever his brother can’t.

It seems like perhaps Cage’s most self-aware character ever, a figure that isn’t as ripe for parody as his many others.