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Casting Gag

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This is where an entire role mirrors or parodies an entire previous role or Real Life situation of the actor. A conscious casting choice can be assumed; thus, it can also apply to cameos and guest stars. This forms a small joke or minor piece of merriment. Note that the gag is entirely dependent on the casting and the role rather than some later effected plot or dialogue.

Contrastingly, an Actor Allusion is when the role being played can be nothing like the actor's real life or previous roles, but contains a Famous Role Shout Out: an allusion to the actor's work, but nothing more.

An actor can use this self-consciously when parodying themselves for Adam Westing. Compare with Playing Against Type, when an actor's role is (often consciously) very different from their typical ones, though this is less likely to be a gag. If the gag is that the character being played is untalented in something the actor excels in, then it's Irony as She Is Cast. If the Casting Gag is that the actor appeared in an earlier version of the same story, it's a Remake Cameo. Compare also to Actor-Shared Background, when the gag doesn't reference a large part of the actor's real life but matches certain elements. See also I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine. Stunt Casting is often done with the aim of shoehorning in this trope.


Examples:

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    Film — Animation 

    Literature 

    Music 
  • For his album Rock Swings Paul Anka covered Bon Jovi's "It's My Life" which references the song "My Way" by Frank Sinatra, which Anka wrote.
  • Peter Gabriel's "The Barry Williams Show" is from the point of view of a trashy Reality Television show host, but the title wasn't meant to reference any specific celebrity, and the name "Barry Williams" was just meant to be as ordinary-sounding as possible. Peter Gabriel subsequently learned that there was in fact a TV star of that name, the American actor is best known for playing Greg from The Brady Bunch, so he got him to make a cameo in the music video... Ironically enough, he plays an audience member, not the host.
  • P!nk's "Revenge", a Revenge Ballad about her and her friends getting back on an ex who treated her badly, has a guest verse from Eminem, infamous for channelling his real-life Destructive Romance with Kim Scott into songs about getting (bloody) revenge on her. Pink doesn't give any details about what her revenge is, and all Slim describes is intentionally cheating on his girl to make her feel bad... but his presence is enough to imply some violence to the plans. This is reinforced by the video, which is pretty gory for Top 40 pop.
  • The voice provider of Vocaloid's Megpoid/Gumi is Megumi Nakajima, who had previously voiced the Idol Singer, Ranka Lee, from Macross Frontier. Her design is also very similar to Ranka's and has the same color scheme as her.
  • For her video for duet with Chris Stapleton "We Don't Even Fight Anymore", Carly Pearce cast Lucy Hale, who Pearce used to sing backup for, as the female lead

    Radio 

    Theatre 
  • In 2009, Cate Blanchett played the title character in an Australian production of Richard II. Richard and Queen Elizabeth I (who Blanchett previously played in Elizabeth) have famously been compared—Elizabeth herself allegedly even said: "I am Richard II; know ye not that?"
  • Anne Hathaway's role as the lead in the 2009 Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night, though it's more of a casting pun. Her name is the same as Shakespeare's wife.
  • Jesse L. Martin, the original Collins in RENT, was in the Rock Opera Bright Lights Big City as the protagonist's best friend, who expressed disdain for "yuppies" and enjoyed using certain, um, recreational substances.
  • Darren Criss, known for playing Harry in A Very Potter Musical, took over Daniel Radcliffe's role in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.
  • Arsenic and Old Lace inverted this in the original stage version. The psychotic older brother berates his surgical henchman because someone said he looked like Boris Karloff. In the original Broadway cast, he was played by Boris Karloff. As the production was still making money at the time the film was set to be produced, the stage producers wouldn't allow Karloff out of his contract long enough to appear in the film version, and so the film producers had to make do with a heavily-made-up Raymond Massey. Karloff did get to reprise the role for a TV movie adaptation in 1962.
  • For the 1951 West End production of A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams personally cast Vivien Leigh—who was still best known for playing Scarlett O'Hara at the time—as the mentally damaged Southern Belle Blanch Dubois, whose inability to cope with the loss of her family's ancestral plantation tragically costs her her sanity. The casting choice carried over to the well-known film adaptation released the same year (see "Film" above).
  • The 2011 production of Company cast Neil Patrick Harris, an openly gay engaged man, as a bachelor who strings women along and disdains marriage.
  • The original Broadway production of Shrek: The Musical cast John Tartaglia, a famous Broadway puppeteer and Muppet performer, as Pinocchio, a puppet.

    Video Games 

    Web Animation 

    Web Videos 
  • The Time... Guys made their three-person cast a joke. One actor plays every single historical character the gang meets.
  • Canadian programmer Ian Kirby, one of the Power Trio of artists behind Broken Saints, makes a Creator Cameo on the DVD voice track as a Canadian soldier.
  • In The Nostalgia Critic's review of Les Misérables (2012) makes fun of the Love at First Sight trope by having that happen between Paw Dugan and Maven of the Eventide; Paul Schuler and Elisa Hansen are engaged in real life.
  • The antagonist of the Irish film Undefeated is a bully who gives a speech about how repulsed he is by the thought of people being gay. His actor James Stephen Walsh is bisexual.
  • In Mr Peterson Robbie is a reckless driver who murdered the titular character with Car Fu. Bobby Calloway didn't know how to drive when his scenes were shot.
  • The Nutters: Luke is portrayed as a clueless ditz. His actor Liam Gaynor was noted to be one of the most intelligent and insightful members of the cast - even winning arts scholarships.


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