Peak Twins: In 2017, Every Actor Plays Dual Roles
Spoiler warning for Twin Peaks: The Return, The Leftovers, Fargo, Logan and Alien: Covenant.
What do the following actors have in common (apart from being terribly handsome)?: Hugh Jackman, James Franco, Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Justin Theroux, Kyle Maclachlan. So far this year, every one of these talented men has played opposite themselves, as either a twin, clone or doppelganger, in a film or TV series. It’s a trend I personally wouldn’t have predicted, but it’s become one of the defining characteristics of visual entertainment in 2017. Sometimes it’s used merely for comedic purposes, but in most cases speaks to deeper concepts of narcissism, schizophrenia and the sharp division of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in the modern world.
In Twin Peaks and Logan, our heroes must defeat ‘Bad’ versions of themselves, functioning in the former as an allegory for the prevalence of ‘dark energy’ in the universe (a favourite topic of David Lynch’s) and — in the latter — a heavy-handed visualisation of Wolverine’s inner struggle: is he man or monster? But David Lynch is never one to opt for the obvious exit, and his 18-hour Peaks revival never saw Maclachlan’s Agent Dale Cooper and long-haired adversary Mr. Cooper share the screen. Mr. Cooper, in fact, hits the ground mere seconds before Dale arrives in Twin Peaks to sort him out — this, I argued at the time, is why we can’t have nice things. On the other hand, the Logan-vs-Logan fight at the end of that film was profoundly silly, almost spoiling the earthy realism of the preceding 2 hours.
In Ridley Scott’s Alien Covenant, perhaps the most subtly ridiculous blockbuster of the year, Michael Fassbender’s thespian android David seduces his facsimile Walter by teaching him to play the flute. The two Fassbenders share a kiss before a cruel, violent betrayal. Though the David/Walter subplot is only a minor part of Covenant, it’s literally the only thing I remember about the film, and is — at times — genuinely quite moving.
Yet the most heartbreaking meeting of twins came in the penultimate episode of The Leftovers, as Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux) returns to the show’s strange afterlife/limbo space and finds he is now the American President. But Kevin is also the International Assassin from the second season, who’s been hired to kill President Kevin. But, in a twist, Assassin Kevin has the nuclear key embedded in his heart, and it must be removed to facilitate the necessary end of days. In one of the most intimate, sensitive and truly sad sequences of the show’s run (and that’s saying something), one Kevin sticks his hand into the other’s heart to the accompaniment of The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows”.
It’s a devastating piece of television, and is significantly more successful in its thematic objective than the third act of Logan, or — for that matter — any of the other projects I’ve mentioned. Fargo, for instance, also featured the murder of one twin by another, as Ewan McGregor’s Stussy Brothers’ season-long feud met a gruesome conclusion. But these brothers, played relatively distinctly by McGregor and apparently not even twins, never felt similar enough for their rivalry to have any symbolism beyond the obvious. Fargo’s third season suffered more broadly from a lack of purpose and clear endgame; its MVP was ultimately David Thewlis’ spitting villain V.M. Varga, a character still less compelling than pretty much anyone on Twin Peaks.
And now, as we enter the Autumn, there’s a new Twins on the box: James Franco is playing brothers on HBO’s The Deuce, a murky drama about the New York sex industry in the early 70s. Franco is getting a great opportunity on the show to remind the world that he’s actual a good actor, but — so far — the need for him to be playing twins has yet to be explained. One brother is getting the majority of the screentime, the other has little purpose than to highlight the relative goodness of the first. I’ll give the show time to convince me otherwise — and I don’t doubt that it will.
But why, we must ask, has the gimmick of the twin and doppelganger taken off with such unfathomable omnipresence in 2017? It’s likely a combination of the technology used to put an actor on the screen twice — which I’ll remind you Hayley Mills was doing in 1961, and Nicolas Cage mastered in 2002 — becoming much cheaper, and an environmental shift that has convinced some of Hollywood’s foremost leading men that one juicy role in a project simply isn’t good enough (with Fassbender, whose involvement in Covenant was based on contractual obligation, the chance to play David and Walter was certainly a carrot).
And that contextual climate is very exclusive: note that we have mentioned exactly zero women in this piece. This particular type of vanity simply doesn’t exist as strongly in the world of female actors. And we’re saying this in a year that has produced fantastic roles for women of all ages: Wonder Woman, Atomic Blonde, Big Little Lies, Feud: Bette and Joan, Gypsy and G.L.O.W. are all evidence of this. But while women are catching up with men in their narrative representation, starring in superhero movies and battling for glory in period tinseltown, men are off dallying in new ventures like cloning themselves for attention. I’d happily watch Charlize Theron fight her evil twin in Atomic Blonde 2: Atomic Blondes; in fact, Netflix’s Gypsy — a shamelessly camp erotic drama starring Naomi Watts — would be the perfect venue for a bit of female twinning, but it was sadly cancelled last month after literally nobody but myself watched the first season.
