Actor Replacements That Fooled Us All

The heated kiss between Thor and Jane Foster in Thor: The Dark World's post-credits scene is one of the steamiest moments in all the Marvel movies, and with good reason: actor Chris Hemsworth isn't making out with his costar Natalie Portman, but his real-life wife, Spanish actress and Fast & Furious star Elsa Pataky.

The scene, in which Thor forsakes his homeland, Asgard, to be with Jane full-time, wasn't finished during regular filming; the kiss was shot later, well after principal photography had wrapped. "[Hemsworth] was working in Hong Kong and I couldn't get there because I was working on my own film," Portman told the New York Daily News, "and so they put his wife in my wig and costume, that's why it was so passionate."

And while many women would be upset to miss out on an opportunity to lock lips with Hemsworth, Portman doesn't seem to be one of them—as she put it, "It was such a perfect solution, wasn't it?" Besides, for the 5'3" Portman, kissing the Thor actor—who measures in at 6 feet, four inches—might be more trouble than it's worth. While filming other kissing scenes in the Thor series, Portman said, "They usually had a ramp for me to walk up so I could land somewhere near his face."

The son of legendary martial artist Bruce Lee, Brandon Lee was set to take Hollywood by storm, mixing his family name with his own charm and talent. Sadly, on the set while filming his breakout role in The Crow, Lee was shot by a prop gun that had a dummy round left in the chamber. He died after six hours in surgery.

With only eight days left of filming to complete the movie, Lee's mother and fiancé both encouraged director Alex Proyas to finish the film. To complete it, Lee's friend and stunt double Chad Stahelski stood in for him while special effects were used to give him Lee's face while another stunt double help finished out some of the action scenes. The result is a movie in which Lee's role is perfect, and there's no indication of the tragedy that befell him.

Friends was a massive success and Jennifer Aniston is arguably the biggest star it produced. Which makes it all the more unusual that it took years after the show was off the air for someone to finally notice one episode in particular in which Aniston inexplicably disappears.

In a random episode from the ninth season, a fan watching a Friends marathon happened to notice that in one scene when Aniston is standing next to Matt Leblanc, it's not Aniston at all. Seems that Aniston's stand-in was on set that day and, for whatever reason, her scene wasn't cut or edited in such a way as to remove her from the shot. The presence of a stand-in isn't such a crazy thing; after all, stand-ins are on set to replace actors when they're not available. It's just that they usually don't end up in the final cut.

Enter the Dragon might be the most important martial arts film ever made, but the success of Hollywood's first-ever kung-fu flick came with a steep, steep price. When superstar Bruce Lee was offered the role of Lee in Robert Clouse's seminal 1973 action movie, he was in the middle of filming Game of Death, and if Lee hadn't taken a break to make Enter the Dragon, the martial artist's mysterious final project might've actually been completed.

As it is, however, Lee died of a brain edema on July 20, 1973, just a month before Enter the Dragon hit screens. That left Game of Death, of which Lee had already filmed about 40 minutes, in limbo. Five years later, Clouse decided to finish what Lee started. Reportedly, Lee was changing Game of Death's script while filming Enter the Dragon, and the story—what there was of it, anyway—was in constant flux (in fact, the day that Lee died, he was meeting with former James Bond George Lazenby about a brand new part in Game of Death that Lee had created with Lazenby in mind). This left Clouse free to create a brand-new plot allowing the director to work around Lee's absence by crafting a story that had room for Lee's previously filmed scenes, shots from older Bruce Lee projects, and even footage from Lee's real-life funeral.

In addition to archival film, Clouse also hired stand-ins to play Billy Lo, Lee's character in the new version of Game of Death. In Clouse's Game of Death, Lo both receives plastic surgery after a brutal fight and later fakes his own death and wears a disguise, making it easy for Clouse to replace Lee in with actors like Kim Tai-chung and Yuen Biao, Bruce Lee's stunt double on Enter the Dragon. While the low-budget archival footage stands out amid Game of Death's high production values, the stand-ins work reasonably well (aside from a few oddities, like a scene in which Kim Tai-chung looks in a mirror and sees a cardboard cut-out of Lee's face staring back at him).

Nicholas Brendon appeared in all but one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and yet, surprisingly, he wasn't the only person to play Xander Harris, Buffy's geeky pal and perennial punching bag. Brendon's twin brother, who uses the stage name Kelly Donovan, often took Brendon's place when the actor wasn't available or when Buffy's supernatural shenanigans required more than one Xander on screen at once.

Donovan made his most memorable appearance on Buffy in the fifth season episode "The Replacement," in which a demon creates a second Xander who threatens to take over the original's life. According to a post on Nicholas Brendon's now-defunct website, Brendon did most of the heavy lifting in the episode—Donovan was supposed to be more of a stand-in, although he turned in such a convincing performance that Brendon, Donovan, and Brendon's wife Tressa di Figlia couldn't tell them apart. In the episode "Intervention," Donovan replaced Brendon entirely during some action scenes, as Brendon had pneumonia and couldn't come to the set.

It might be hard to imagine now, but in the '70s, only one big-budget superhero franchise ruled the silver screen. With director Richard Donner at the helm and Christopher Reeve wearing the cape, the original Superman made $300 million at the worldwide box office—almost six times its budget—and established the template for almost every superhero film to follow.

After success like that, you'd expect Donner to return for the sequel. Sadly, that wasn't the case. During filming, Donner argued with producers Ilya and Alexander Salkind about the film's budget, and although Donner had already filmed roughly 75% of Superman II during production of the first film, he was replaced by A Hard Day's Night's Richard Lester. In order to secure a director's credit, Lester reshot quite a bit of Donner's footage, substantially changing Superman II's story and tone in the process.

The way the Salkinds treated Donner didn't sit well with the cast. Reportedly, Reeve was openly furious about Donner's dismissal. Gene Hackman, who played Lex Luthor in both films, flat-out refused to show up to finish shooting Superman II. With Hackman absent, Lester and the Salkinds were forced to use body doubles and voice impersonators in order to bring Superman II to completion.

For such a small role, Marvel Studios sure had a lot of trouble casting Fandral the Dashing, the Warriors Three's swashbuckling lothario. First, Chuck star Zachary Levi was set to play the goateed Asgardian, but had to drop out when NBC ordered more episodes of Chuck's third season. Next, Marvel cast Queen of the Damned and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen star Stuart Townsend in the role, but Townsend departed shortly before filming due to mysterious "creative differences." Marvel finally found its Fandral in a then-unknown actor named Josh Dallas, who finally brought the classic character to the screen.

But the trouble didn't stop there. Between Thor's premiere and the start of filming on Thor: The Dark World, Dallas landed the plum role of Prince Charming on ABC's fairytale drama Once Upon a Time. Because of Once Upon a Time's rigorous shooting schedule, Dallas couldn't join his fellow Warriors for their big screen return, and Marvel needed to recast the part. Their choice? Zachary Levi, of course, who was finally free to take the role after Chuck's five-season run came to an end. Thanks to Fandral's signature facial hair (and, honestly, his limited screen time), Levi effortlessly picked up right where Dallas left off, leaving audiences none the wiser.

Shemp Howard of the Three Stooges was contracted along with the other Stooges to produce eight films in 1956. Unfortunately, four films into the contract, Shemp Howard died of a heart attack at age 60. And in the 1950s, no one gave a damn if you died or not, your contract needed to be fulfilled. Thus was born the "Fake Shemp." Producer Jules White set about producing four brand new films, each starring Shemp, by cutting together footage from older Stooges films with new scenes featuring Joe Palma, an actor who had long filled supporting roles in Stooges films. They just filmed him from behind or with his face obscured.

Lena Headey plays Cersei Lannister, the ultimate villain on HBO's Game of Thrones. So viewers watched with a bit of sadistic glee when the character was literally and figuratively dressed down to be paraded through the streets of King's Landing in nothing but a short haircut and smears of filth.

The scene is intense and humiliating and drawn out so the audience can experience her awkward humiliation. The craziest part, however, is that we're not even watching Headey in the scene. The entire walk is performed by a body double seamlessly merged with Headey's facial expressions and body language to make one awkward, horrible walk to the Red Keep.