There's a long history of actors playing fake twins, doppelgangers, and doubles in movies. Insider traces the evolution of doubling effects in Hollywood, from the split screens of the original "Parent Trap" to the rotoscoping and green-screen composites used on Nicolas Cage in 2002's "Adaptation," all the way up to the advanced face and head replacements of 2019's "Us." They take a look at how technology dating from the early silent-film era has advanced to make movies like "Us," "The Social Network," and more possible, and break down why the Jeremy Irons twins in David Cronenberg's 1988 movie "Dead Ringers" represented a turning point for twin effects. They show how the artists at Monsters Aliens Robots Zombies VFX cloned Paul Rudd for his 2019 Netflix series "Living with Yourself," how Rodeo FX created Jake Gyllenhaal doppelgangers for Denis Villeneuve's 2013 thriller "Enemy," and how NVIZ Studio pulled off its twinning effects on Tom Hardy in 2015's "Legend" and Seth Rogen in 2020's "An American Pickle" and show why late 19th-century optical effects laid the foundation for all this groundbreaking effects work in the 21st century.
