Nothing draws a crowd like TV guest appearances by Oscar-nominated actors. And so I found myself watching “Alias” Sunday night to see my beloved Ethan Hawke.
Like any boy born in the early 1980s, Ethan Hawke reached out to me as the idyllic hero in the 1985 film “Explorers,” where he and three friends go on a journey in space … for some reason I have since forgotten. But that does not demean its impact on my supple young mind.
But back to “Alias.” Knowing they only had one shot with the Hawke, the show’s screenwriters had him doing double time as a CIA agent and an evil doctor who had used gene-altering technology to copy his face. Like salmon returning upriver to spawn, the show followed its only natural course to the scene where the two Hawkes pointed guns at each other and CIA agent Sydney Bristow was left to figure out which was the real one.
Disregarding hackneyed climax devices, the show got me thinking about actors playing twins or look-alikes of some other nature. The other current example is Nicolas Cage in “Adaptation,” where his two screen personae are so expertly integrated, it’s almost believable that there are two Cages. But movie twins — or twinema — is a phenomenon dating back to great action heroes such as Jean-Claude Van Damme in the classic “Double Impact” and Jackie Chan’s “Twin Dragons.”
Of course, these examples follow “long lost twin” scenarios. There is also the “honey I cloned myself” premise that made Michael Keaton’s “Multiplicity” one for the books. This year’s “Treehouse of Horror” Simpsons episode comes to mind, where Homer uses a cursed hammock to clone himself. And then I remember that he is a cartoon.
Time travel also makes for good twinema, as demonstrated by Michael J. Fox in “Back to the Future Part II.” Evil robots are also acceptable, such as in “Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey.” You want more? ‘Cause I’ve got ’em. So I don’t want to hear anybody complaining they can’t justify twins on screen.
But you ask, “What is all this driving at?” It’s time we demand more from our actors. In our negligence, look what we have let those lazy “artists” get away with: the Olsen twins playing one baby on “Full House.” Outrageous. Child labor laws. Pfft!
In my new, perfect world, those jail bait floozies would have to give us at least four Olsens to warrant any notice. Here’s the pitch: Hayley Mills of “The Parent Trap” reprises her role as twin sisters who have now grown up and each simultaneously give birth to twins that miraculously look the same — perhaps twin fathers? — and will be played by Mary-Kate and Ashley. Let me know where to collect my Oscar.
Now, I’m probably crazy. That or I’ve hyperbolized hyperbole. But I figure we’ve already discovered all the talent out there, and from here on out I just want to see movies with Brendan Fraser playing every part.