UPDATE: Kong: Skull Island director Jordan Vogt-Roberts has clarified on Twitter that the Skull Island native is played by someone different, not Brie Larson.
EARLIER:
Brie Larson made her first blockbuster appearance following her Oscar win for Room in 2017’s Kong: Skull Island. Larson starred in the King Kong reboot and prequel to 2014’s Godzilla as feisty photojournalist Mason Weaver, who joins the military on a journey to the infamous island.
A well-known fun fact about Kong: Skull Island is that British actor Toby Kebbell discreetly plays two roles in the film. In addition to playing homesick soldier Jack Chapman, he also did the facial motion capture work for the titular gorilla (with Terry Notary taking over for the rest), which is something he already had experience with through his role as Koba in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
However, Toby Kebbell is not the only cast member working double duty in Kong: Skull Island. Mason Weaver is not Brie Larson’s only role in the film.
On July 3, 2019, Reddit user Ropeonapope posted the shocking revelation that Brie Larson also appears in Kong: Skull Island as a Skull Island native. If you look closely at the photo below, you can see the actress holding a spear in a defensive pose and bearing a fierce expression, hidden under heavy makeup.
Just when you thought the Captain Marvel star could not be more talented, this tasty little nugget of trivia sneaks out from the underground. Even with an Academy Award under her belt, it turns out that we have not been giving Brie Larson the full credit her dynamic talent deserves.
Actors secretly secretly playing more than one role in the same movie is actually not uncommon in Hollywood. In addition to voicing the Genie in Disney’s 1992 animated classic Aladdin, Robin Williams also played the street peddler who opens the film. It was originally meant to be revealed that Genie and the peddler were the same character until that idea was eventually scrapped, so we can still count it as double duty.
The late, great, 7’3” Kevin Peter Hall is best known for playing the title role of the sci-fi action extravaganza, Predator, after replacing Jean-Claude Van Damme. Because Hall is usually working under prosthetics, you may not have noticed his cameo as the helicopter pilot at the end of the film.
In 2004’s Shaun of the Dead, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin appears as himself and a zombie, and Canadian actor Alain Chanoine plays both a zombie and Enchantress’ brother, Incubus, in 2016’s Suicide Squad. More recently, Mark Hamill voiced an alien who mistakes BB-8 for a slot machine on Canto Bight in Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Ryan Reynolds made a voice cameo as Juggernaut in Deadpool 2.
If you really want to go deep with discreet dual role trivia, remember Thing, the disembodied hand the Addams Family kept as a pet? In the 1960s iteration of the creepy family, that hand belonged to Ted Cassidy, who also played the Addams’ tall, deep-voiced butler, Lurch.
It only goes to show that, when it comes to movie magic, looks can be deceiving and even an A-List celebrity can have a small side cameo in the same film they are headlining. Now we know that Brie Larson can call herself a member of the niche group of actors who have surprised audiences by working a covert double shift.
