MovieChat Forums > Medium (2005) Discussion > Jennifer Lawrence - Two different charac...

Jennifer Lawrence - Two different characters

posted 10 years ago by DirectorzCut
19 replies | jump to latest

How could Jennifer Lawrence do two different roles in the series?

In her first appearance (S3?) she was a victim so how could she play a young Allison in another episode (S4)?

At first I thought it was because she was the first victim Ariel dreamed of in a previous season but then Ariel actually looked after in the yearbook and saw Lawrence as a young Allison it just felt strange.
It becomes a weird continuity when an actor portrays multiple characters in a series. Did the production team thought that the viewers wouldn't notice?

What happened to Jessy Schram? She did great as a young Allison.

[–] maetelle 10 years ago

It is interesting that Jennifer Lawrence is the only recurring actor you have noticed. Tina DiJoseph, who plays Lynn DiNovi, is in the pilot as a Texas Ranger. The actor who plays Scanlon's older brother appears in the first season as a detective. These sorts of things happen all the time.

[–] DirectorzCut 10 years ago

I didn't even notice that!

But why? Do they think that no one will see it?

[–] maetelle 10 years ago

I think that's certainly part of it, yes. In most cases these repeat actors were playing bit parts, small roles you'd likely not really remember. The only reason you really notice Jennifer is that she is such a huge star now. She was far from it at the time. Emma Stone was in an episode of the show as well and hardly anyone realizes it's her.

[–] DirectorzCut 10 years ago

I was used to see Jessy Schram as a young Allison so I was pretty surprised to see Jennifer return in that role.

Yeah, Emma had a different name back then - Riley.

[–] saprater 10 years ago

Mireille Enos is another actress that went onto to bigger things. She's not a huge star, but she received critical acclaim for her performance on The Killing and recently starred as Brad Pitt's wife in WWZ.

She played the woman who deliberately married her half brother in order to get back at their dad.

[–] Waigon 9 years ago

The only reason I remembered Lawrence in this dual role is because the second role she played was of Allison herself as a younger person, and she WASN'T THE ORIGINAL ACTRESS WHO PLAYED HER. It was soooo frustrating at the time!! As great an actress as she is, she didn't suit the role as well as the original actress did.

[–] laballatician 10 years ago

Maybe they like the actor and want to use them again.

[–] sam-151 10 years ago

Known to happen. Just look at Catherine Bell. She played a chatacter (Diane,a friend of Harm) in one s1 episode of JAG. Then when JAG changed network, they brought her back to star in the series, and she played Mac for 9 years. So she must have done something right in that one episode 😊 But then they acnowledged Mac's resembelance with Diane several times, that usually don't happen...

[–] eddy089 10 years ago

Agreed, it's an annoying and cheap action to hire the same actor for different characters, even though some time has passed between episodes. A thing a little less annoying is when they choose actors to play "young [insert name here]", who bear little to no resemblance to the actual, adult character (e.g. the character Kyle Gallner played in that episode where they first show young Allison vs. his adult self, or 20-something Ariel in the episode where Marie is dying of leukemia in the future - they look nothing like each other). The most annoying thing by far in a TV show however, is to replace an actor playing a character with someone completely different, with a different mimic, mannerisms and all that, losing all the character's essence by that point. Thank God they stopped doing that since the '80s-'90s, right?

I can set you free
Make you rich and wise
We can live forever
Look into my eyes...

[–] sam-151 10 years ago

Having the same actor playing different (minor) characters in different episodes on the same show is very common. I think you'll find that this happens on most series.

I personally think it is more interesting to notice when this happens than it is annoying. What I do think is annoying is when they replace an actor playing a character with another actor and act like nothing's happened. Like they did with Steven on Dynasty. I think this happened more in the 80' and 90's though.

[–] DirectorzCut 10 years ago

They do that a lot in The Bold and the Beautiful.

[–] mercyonme 10 years ago

Wow I never knew this. That's just sloppy casting. This is not unheard of but certainly uncommon. It mostly happens on Law & Order. The worst example is Diane Neal playing a female rapist on an episode of Law & Order: SVU and then later cast as ADA Casey Novak! LOL!

Also as far as Jessy Schram, it's possible she wasn't available for the third episode they needed her in so they had to recast.

[–] DirectorzCut 10 years ago

Wow, I just saw the final season and Ryan Hurst who played Allison's brother Michael in the earlier seasons was replaced with Patricia's real brother David.

[–] Dollhouse_89 7 years ago

She wasn't sh-t back then. They were sure we wouldn't care enough to notice. I noticed because I am didn't watch this show until a few months ago. And as for the other actors in this thread who apparently played other characters, I never noticed them.

[–] CharlotteXavier (2357) 6 years ago

Funny that I saw this thread. I was watching Columbo last night and looked up an actor. He was on two episodes, one in 72 and the other in 73, playing different cops.

I've noticed it before plenty of times on shows going waaaayyy back.

Someone likes the actor and they get to come back.

[–] PaladinNJ (20308) 4 years ago

Robert Culp played 4 different roles on Columbo.

[–] CharlotteXavier (2357) 4 years ago

I’ll check those episodes out. Was watching Peter Falk in The Thing About My Folks today. He was a good dramatic actor. Columbo was pretty tongue in cheek and didn’t really showcase his dramatic abilities.

[–] PaladinNJ (20308) 4 years ago

It happens all the time. It's not a goof. It's just an actor playing a different role.
Jerry Orbach played a judge on Law & Order before he played Lennie Briscoe. Lance Barber played a very prominent role as Leonard's nemesis on Big Bang then was cast as Leonard's father on Young Sheldon.

[–] Kowalski (57268) 4 years ago

JULIANNA MARGULIES DIED IN THE ER AT THE END OF ONE SEASON..THEN SHOWS UP AS CAROL THE NEXT....IT DOES HAPPEN,SOMETIMES SOMEONE IS JUST TOO GOOD TO NOT UTILIZE FURTHER.