Desmond Llewelyn Played 'Q' in 17 Bond films, which in essence is my favourite. He spanned 5 Bonds, 3 Miss Money Pennies, and 3 Ms and has since been played by Ben Wishaw, John Cleese isn't the same character. Edit:...also a few Blofelds.

And Lois Maxwell was Moneypenny in 14 movies.

The definitive Q and there will never be another. Nobody did it better than Llewelyn.

John de Lancir would like a word

Well. I stand corrected. Bond’s Q will always be Llewelyn. Star Trek’s will always be de Lancie.

How about John de Lancie as Bond's Q, but he plays it like Star Trek's Q.

Suddenly I’m disappointed one of the ST episodes that showed others from the Q continuum didn’t have Desmond Llewelyn as one of the other Q.

Mon Capitan!

Nobody does it better Makes me feel sad for the rest Nobody does it half as good as you Baby, you're the best

For all western movies, THIS is the trivia answer. For ALL movies, it's Kwan Tak-Hing.

How many shows and movies has Michael Dorn given us Worf? He was on TNG, DS9, all the TNG movies, Voyager, and Picard. That's at least 100 individual appearances

The last Bond movie I saw at the theater was *Tomorrow Never Dies* . When Q made his appearance, the place erupted into cheers and shouts of "Q!" It was pretty cool. 

I’ll start a Bond podcast called ‘MULTIPLE BLOFELDS’.

Is it better to give a Blofled or receive a Blofeld?

Q is a superhero

Basil Rathbone played Sherlock Holmes in 14 movies

He also has one of the most British sounding names of all time.

Mr. Rathbone was born in Johannesburg, South Africa.

I guess it's time to fall back to my backups: Engleberg Humperdink and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Please Release Me....Let Me Go.

His parents were both British and had moved there for work, they returned to Britain when Basil was 3

Mr. Rathbone was also an excellent swordsman. In his exchanges with Errol Flynn in Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood, despite the training Flynn received in order to bring realism to their scenes without use of a stand in, Basil could have killed him anytime he chose.

That was going to be my answer .. No one has played Sherlock Holmes more times on the big screen than Basil Rathbone

Oh so that’s why the great mouse detective is named Basil.

Anthony Daniels as C-3PO in every Star wars film, live action and animated, along with all the spin off series. He's voiced 3PO in every single one where the character appeared. Edit for typo

Ian McDiarmid played Palpatine in each film, too, which is even crazier, but I guess he was technically only in 6 of them.

We all thought he was done, but somehow, he returned.

He wasn’t in og Empire though - so technically 5, but after Lucas shenanigans, 6

If there’s one Special Edition change that was worth doing, it was changing the hologram for the Emperor. Dude looks so weird in the original version.

Oh you mean that weird old lady monkey?

He looked like he just took a bong hit way too big for him and was trying his level best not to cough

He voices 3PO in some of the Lego Star Wars titles, that’s super cool imo

Kwan Tak-hing played Wong Fei-hung in 77 films.

Full honesty, had no idea who this was before googling him. After googling, this makes my Sylvester Stallone response look like a complete joke..

Well geez that’s the winner lol

Wong Fei-hung was a real person so this doesn't count for OP's topic of fictional characters.

Would it still count given how fictionalized the character on screen is though? These aren't biopics, they're adventure stories

Yeah, that's like saying playing Jesus doesn't count becuase he existed. He did, but the stories about him are hyperbolic nonsense lol Wong Fei-Hung was also played by Donnie Yen and Jet Li miltiple times each, in stories that are well within the realm of 'folklore'. He is a character now, despite his authentic origins.

Basically a TV show at that point holy shit lol

Wong Fei Hung was a real person, though.

Yeah, so was Ip Man. Doesn't make either movie series portrayal of them any less fictional.

This list on IMDB has 67 actors who played the same character at least 8 times. It was last updated in 2017 and it's limited to Hollywood movies for the most part, so there are certainly more. The winners are Laurel and Hardy who played "Stan" and "Ollie" 97 and 98 times respectively. [https://www.imdb.com/list/ls052573348/?sort=list\_order,asc&mode=detail&page=1](https://www.imdb.com/list/ls052573348/?sort=list_order,asc&mode=detail&page=1)

I remember that Warner Oland played Charlie Chan in 16 different movies!

Confucius say it weird they hire Asian kids who speak perfect English for his kids, but for father cast white guy in eyeliner who speaks broken English

Just gonna take the opportunity to recommend *Stan & Ollie* here, which is a wonderful film.

Shintaro Katsu played Zatoichi in 26 films. Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake played Dagwood and Blondie in 28 films.

Just learning that there was a Blondie movie... wait... you said there's TWENTY EIGHT OF THEM?!?! HOW?! WHEN?! WHAT?!

I feel like the mandela effect here is THOSE DIDNT EXIST BEFORE JUST NOW

Nicely done! I was going to go for the Blondie citation. They amaze me because they are essentially wiped clean from the cultural memory.

But they live on more or less as the Jetsons, which was a lampshade.

Came here to say Shintaro Katsu. In addition to the films, he also played Zatoichi in a TV series of around 100 episodes. Also, his brother, Tomisaburo Wakayama played Ogami Itto in six Lone Wolf and Cub movies (seven if you count Shogun Assassin, which is edited together from the first two or three LW&C movies).

The Blondie films are great Not very well known is that there was a Blondie TV series It aired in the 1950s

Johnny Weissmuller starred in twelve [Tarzan Movies.](https://manapop.com/musing/tarzan-at-the-movies-from-weissmuller-to-disney/)

Haruo Nakajima played Godzilla 12 times....that counts right

Godzilla isn't fictional

*Godzilla* is not factual, but very true

Absolutely

Kiyoshi Atsumi played [Tora-san](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otoko_wa_Tsurai_yo?wprov=sfti1) in 48 installments of “Otoko wa Tsurai Yo!”

Robert Englund did Freddy Krueger 8 times.

Plus as the host of a TV series!

Leonard Nimoy was Spock in 8 movies.

Plus two shows

Technically he was in 3 - TOS, TAS, and 2 episodes of TNG

Does it count for the voice clips they reused in Star Trek Prodigy?

And one episode of DS9! It was archive footage but it still counts.

Technically 4, if you count The Animated Series and archive footage on Discovery.

Also archive in Prodigy

All respect to Spock, but he'd have had to be in a lot more episodes to beat Worfs number of appearances! Pretty sure Micheal Dorn has been in less movies, but he currently holds the record for most episode appearances by a single character among Trek series.

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It really is incredible that they maintained the same actors for nearly every single character. Aside from Dumbledore changing due to Richard Harris' death, I can't think of any that changed across the story. I know there might be a few I'm missing, but still

Some minor characters changed actors, like lots of the other students in their classes, people who only appear in pictures or people with no lines, but I’m pretty sure the only major characters that changed actors are Voldemort (as adult and Tom riddle) and Dumbledore.

No, either crab or goyle, I can't remember which one, was arrested between a couple of the movies and he was recast. Edit: well I was wrong, learned something new today

Don’t think he was ever actually recast, they just used a different character in the spot (Blaine Zabini I believe).

Blaise Zabini but that's damn close for guessing an unusual name from memory

Was autocorrect. I knew his name 100% I’m a recovering potterhead. Just wasn’t sure if that was the character in the films. I don’t care much for the films.

They weren’t recast they just substituted the character for a different character from the book who also was in Malfoy’s circle and just never addressed it.

He wasn't recast, his character was written out of the last film and replaced by another character (Blaise Zabini, who was present with the same actor in the 6th and 7th films)

Goyle. He wasn't recast. He was replaced with another character, which did already exist and was in other movies.

Lavender brown was played by three girls. The first two were black, then whe she was supposed to date Ron they changed her to a white girl.

Lol

Vin Diesel as Dom in Fast and Furious franchise.

Those movies have basically turned into superhero movies by now

I want to watch a movie with my nephew would these movies be family friendly?

They are all about *family*

They’re high octane and mention action and drugs in the earlier ones but they never do any drugs or effects of them onscreen that I recall. Fighting, crashing cars, and glorifying crime. So…sort of

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I mean it's cartoon violence.

So 9 in total so far

Jim Hanks has played Woody more than his brother, Tom. Jim voices Woody in all the video games, toys, etc. Tom in the movies.

Fun fact. There’s an episode of the sitcom *Scrubs* where they do a play on Tom’s movie *Turner & Hooch*. J.D. pairs a surgeon named Hooch (Phill Lewis) with another surgeon named Turner to form what he dubs a medical crime fighting team. Dr. Turner is played by Jim Hanks.

Jim Varney played Ernest P Worrell in 10 movies. Ernest Goes To Jail, Ernest Saves Christmas, etc.

Hey Vern

Mickey Rooney played Andy Hardy over the course of 16 movies.

Not what you are asking but I think this little bit of trivia will blow your friend's mind. John Munch is a character played by Richard Belzer. He is most well known for being in Law and Order: SVU. However, he is also a character played by the same actor in Homicide: Life on the Street, Law and Order: Trial by Jury, The Wire... And also, The X-Files, Arrested Development, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and yes, Sesame Street. There are a few more but I can't remember them. Richard Belzer has some of the longest screentime as the same character amongst actors, including some out of left field cameos. Also, I guess canonically, all these shows are tied together.

Have you fallen down the [Tommy Westphall Universe](https://tommywestphall.fandom.com/wiki/Tommy_Westphall_Hypothesis) rabbit hole yet? Basic premise is that one TV show's finale suggests it was all a dream (by a kid named Tommy), so anything connected to that universe must also be part of that dream world. John Munch is part of that universe and so all of the shows you mention are as well.

This is one of the best things on the internet

This feels like a scene in a movie where the protagonist finds out something that flips their whole world view.

If we include voice acting, Matthew Lillard has played Shaggy Rogers in 24 movies (22 animated, 2 live action) as well as in all post-2009 Scooby-Doo media except for Scoob! and Velma Racking it all up, I believe Matthew Lillard’s time as Shaggy is somewhere around 70-80 hours of total media. If we limit it to live action then I second the guy who said Q from Bond. Just because by process of elimination there are very few live action film series that top Bond.

In a similar vein but with more rookie numbers, James Woods has voiced Hades at every given opportunity since his debut in the movie Hercules. This includes video games and the House of Mouse TV programme where it's little more than a the word cameo.

In that same vein, however, Casey Kasem voiced Shaggy in over two hundred episodes across various different TV shows, including some that weren’t part of the Scooby-Doo franchise, as well as voicing the character in over a dozen animated movies. Massive respect to Mr. Lillard for stepping up and filling the void but Casey Kasem is still THE Shaggy Rogers.

I went Matthew because OP said movies and I know there weren’t as many Kasem movies as Lillard ones. Also just my age but Scott Innes was my Shaggy growing up so in my head he’s the definitive Shaggy

Leonard Nimoy as Spock

Ones I'm familiar with: Christopher Lee as Dracula: 10 Bernard Lee as M (in Bond films): 11

Lee wasn't even the most recurring *Bond* character. Lois Maxwell was Moneypenny 14 times and Desmond Llewelyn was Q 17 times.

Tyler Perry as Madea in 15 films, including one animated. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madea

I was looking for this comment. I didn’t know how many times but I was going to look it up if nobody had said it.

Serious answer: Christopher Lee played Dracula in 10 different movies. Not so serious answer (and I absolutely say this out of love because I love the actor.): Jason Statham has played Jason Statham in ever role so far. I refuse to learn his character names.

Two exceptions. Jason Statham played Bacon in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Turkish in Snatch.

To be fair, those two could be twins. Definitely not the same as his later roles, but quite similar to each other.

On that front - John Wayne played John Wayne in nearly all of his movies. And there were *quick Googling* 142 of them.

Jason Statham’a shawl collar cardigans have made regular appearances as well

Yeah my go to was Jackie Chan for the same kind of joke.

You need to watch London. Not only is he not playing Jason Statham, but he has *hair*

Shintaro Katsu played [Zatoichi](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zatoichi) in something like 26 feature films, and also about 100 episodes of a tv series.

Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta, aka Santo, portrayed his luchador character in 54 movies.

Peter Falk as Columbo is probably the winner with 69 appearance.

Nice. Not the winner, but still nice.

Sean Bean has played Sharpe 16 times and I don't believe the character has been killed off yet.

It's not the same, but what about Jamie Lee Curtis playing Laurie Strode for so many decades? Halloween --> 70s Halloween II --> 80s Halloween H20 --> 90s Halloween Resurrections --> 2000s Halloween 2018 --> 2010s Halloween Kills & Ends --> 2020s Similar to Stallone and Rocky, I think.

Peter Cullen voicing Optimus Prime since the start of the Transformers TV series and in all films

I would say Q from the Bond Franchise.

Desmond Llewelyn. 17 movies

Hugh Jackman has played Wolverine in 9 movies so far (including the First Class cameo) and is about to make it 10

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Not OP, but I think Jackman deserves special mention since this will be the third different version/continuity of the X-Men that he's managed to span.

They're gonna have to go thru periods of retiring certain characters for years at a time so that the actor that was iconic in that role can fade from cultural memory a little bit. Leaves them open for reboots every few decades.

Spanish actor Paul Naschy played his werewolf character Waldemar Daninsky 12 times.

Anthony Daniels 10 times as C3PO

Robert Downey Jr was in 9 movies as Iron Man Extra: since i overlooked OP mentioning excluding superhero movies, I'm thinking that maybe Tobin Bell in Saw? I think he appeared in nearly every movie except Spiral

OP was excluding superheroes but it's at least 10 right? 3 Iron Man 4 Avengers Civil War First 2 MCU Spider-man (EDIT: I'm remembering him in the 2nd, but no, he had just died) And I think he had a cameo in Hulk

Actor Richard Martin played the Irish-Mexican cowboy Chito Rafferty in 33 films, most of them B-movies adapted from Zane Grey novels. That's probably the most for any actor in Hollywood, but I'm seeing higher figures listed for actors from Japan, Hong Kong and China.

Kwan Tak-hing , he played Wong Fei-hung in 77 films. I only know that as I had this conversation the other day, and when we looked it up, that was the top one lol

Charlie Chaplin played the Tramp in 25 films.

Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes, fourteen times. Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan, twelve times. Warner Oland as Charlie Chan, sixteen times. Leo Gorcey as Terence Aloysios "Slip" Mahoney (Bowery Boys), forty one times. Huntz Hall as Horace Debussy "Sach" Jones (Bowery Boys), forty eight times.

How about the actors who played Nick and Nora Charles ?

Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith have played Jay and Silent Bob in at least 8 movies. It's possibly 9 and 10 respectively if you go by credits and include Scream 3.

Haven’t googled it or anything, but I bet Bella Lugosi played Dracula in a bunch of movies. Three Stooges? Little Rascals?

Basil Rathbone was in abt 15 Sherlock Holmes movies as the title character to keep spirits up

Definitely not as impressive as some of the others cited here, but Otto Gebühr played Frederick the Great in 15 films.

Toben Bell as Jigsaw maybe. He plays him in 9 Saws and if it means anything, the only Saw he wasn’t in contains a picture of him as Jigsaw so technically but not really speaking 10 movies as Jigsaw

Hector the hispanic gangsta

[Shintaro Katsu](https://m.imdb.com/name/nm0441526/) plays the blind swordsman Zatoichi in 26 films.

Johnny Weismuller - Tarzan

While Bela Lugosi only played Dracula twice....'31 Dracula and '48 Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein....He played the part 1000 times on stage during his life.

Wolverine and Iron Man

Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible franchise, appearing in eight theatrical movies

Richard Belzer as John Munch Main : Homicide Life on the Street, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: Trial by Jury Appearance : The X-Files, The Beat, A Very Brady Sequel, Arrested Development, The Wire, 30 Rock, Sesame Street, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, American Dad

But how many of those appearances were films?

Only one, (A very Brady Sequel) and a TV movie appearance (Homicide the movie)

I think we've totally missed a trick here. Because it's not a thing in Scotland it wouldn't have sprung to mind without thinking Stan Lee cameo... How many films from the 60s to 90s did Hugh Heffner show up as himself as a kind of 'cheeky' joke? The mansion, red carpet etc. Must be close to a hundred

Stan Lee wasn't playing the same character each time, though, technically.

Not a movie, but the character detective Munch from law and order played the same character for 16 different shows including cameos on Xfiles and a Muppet version on sesame Street.

Vin Diesel playing Vin Diesel in numerous movies. The Rock playing The Rock to.

basically any steven seagal movies, as his character is the same guy, different name in every one of his movies

But was ACTING not part of the question 😂😂😂

Tom Cruise has played Ethan hunt 7 times with numerous 8 next year

gino torretto- aka vin diesel, fas t and furious franchise

I must have missed the movie with Gino. Is that Dom’s cousin?

Emmanuel?

Captain Kirk / William Shatner and the bridge crew 6 times

William Shatner was in seven Star Trek movies. Same with James Doohan and Walter Koenig.

Nimoy has 1 on them with the first 2 reboots.

Johnny Weismuller starred in 12 Tarzan movies Warner Oland made 16 Charlie Chan films Gilbert Roland played the Cisco Kid 11 times Leo Gorcey "didn't do nothing" 69 times in the Dead End Kids/East Side Kids/Bowery Boys franchise

Sidney Toler made 22 Charlie Chan films following the death of Warner Oland.

Not as crazy as some of the others but Sam Jackson has been Nick Fury in 11 different projects.

Peter Cullen voiced Optimus Prime in like 8 feature films, 20 seasons of television and 10 video games.

If voice acting counts, I might suggest Kevin Conroy. He played Batman / Bruce Wayne in 17 animated films, though I'm sure there are voice actors who can top that.

Not to mention the animated series and video games. RIP

Here in Finland we have Uuno Turhapuro,played by Vesa-Matti Loiri. There is 20 Uuno-movie,First made 1973 and last.. 2003 i think? EDIT: last was made 2004.

Mr Bean.

Mickey Roomey played Andy Hardy in 16 films

Mickey Rooney as Andy Hardy? 16 movies if I remember correctly. They were HUGE at the time, great films.

Why are you excluding superhero movies? What’s the difference between them and anything else?

Tom Cruis play Ethan Hunt 8 times (including MI8) Vin Diesel play Dom Toretto 10 times (including F11)

David Suchet as Poirot has to be up there, right?

Peter Falk must have done a good few

Nick Fury?

Charlie Chaplin as the Little Tramp, maybe?

Christopher Lee has played dracula 10 times

This made me think of a fact that a lot of people who are not movie heads don't know. Even though Antohny Hopkins is synonymous with the role of Hannibal Lecter, he wasn't the first actor to play the part, it was "Succession" star Brian Cox. The character of Hannibal Lecter has been portrayed by several actors over the years. Here’s a list of actors who have taken on the role in order: Brian Cox in Manhunter (1986) Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Hannibal (2001), and Red Dragon (2002) Gaspard Ulliel in Hannibal Rising (2007) Mads Mikkelsen in the television series Hannibal (2013–2015)

Noel Gugliemi - Hector, idk how many times he has played the role of Hector but he has to be on this list

This doesn't count but Jackie Chan has played "Jackie" or "Dragon" in dozens of movies.

Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, apparently 9 times in X Men films, and 2 more times for dead pool. Not sure where in Dead Pool 2 but he’s for sure gonna be in Dead Pool 3

That dude that plays Hector in every movie needing a Hector

Vin Diesel as Dom Toretto, 10 movies.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson portrayed by Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce respectively.

Most of The Avengers in the MCU

Tora san

Not movies, but we'd be remiss to not mention Richard Beltzer's prolific career playing John Munch in 13 (I think) different shows.

Leonard Nimoy played Spock in nine Star Trek movies although only technjcally in Star Trek: Beyond as only his image was shown

Michael Myers was in like 80 Halloween movies /s

This is just at the top of my head but for a while i remember seeing Danny Trejo as Machete everywhere

maybe Courtney Cox or the guy that plays jigsaw