Remaking Without Recasting

[aox]

Michael Sheard's side hustle was playing Adolf Hitler:

Secret History
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
The Dirty Dozen: Next Mission
The Tomorrow People
Rogue Male

Same with Jeannette Charles, who was the go-to for Queen Elizabeth II (but this was her main hustle):

Write the Future
Big Brother's Little Brother
The Slammer
Austin Powers in Goldmember
World of Pub
The Parent Trap
Shining Time Station: Queen for a Day
Tatort
Day by Day
Carrott Confidential
The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!
The Sooty Show
Nipagesh Bachof
The Big Gag
Dolly
If It's Tuesday, It Still Must Be Belgium
Ratman
Tickets for the Titanic
First Among Equals
National Lampoon's European Vacation
Erinnerungen werden wach: Inge Meysel
On Safari
The Queen Special
Not the Nine O'Clock News
Q5
The Goodies
Da kommt was auf uns zu
The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash
Queen Kong
Am laufenden Band
Born Erect
Loriots Telecabinet

[Peg of the PreCodes]

Greta Garbo as the female lead in Love (1927) and Anna Karenina (1935). Also in the English-language and German-language versions of Anna Christie (1930).

George Arliss in Disraeli (1921 and 1929), The Man Who Played God (1922 and 1932), and The Green Goddess (1923 and 1930).

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Since this thread has developed to also include actors who repeatedly played the same role in films that weren't remakes: in China there's a specific term (特型演员) for actors who specialize in a certain historical figure. The casting of Party leaders (Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, etc.) supposedly has to be approved by the Central Committee, which would naturally reinforce the tendency to reuse the same actors in the same roles. Those actors are also barred from taking other roles that might produce "inappropriate" associations in the mind of the audience—some just don't take any other roles at all—or from appearing in ads. Gu Yue played Mao Zedong (and nobody else) in 84 movies and TV series, and Liu Jian has played Zhou Enlai more than 60 times. There are also actors who specialize in Chiang Kai-shek, Sun Yat-sen, and various emperors; Tang Guoqiang is mostly known as Mao Zedong but has also played a dozen-odd emperors. Ma Xiaowei specialized in Chiang Kai-shek, but media reports (quoting Ma directly) once claimed he was supposed to play a dual role as Chiang and Mao in a TV series about Soong Ching-ling. Whoever came up with that idea was obviously and predictably overruled, since the series as broadcast had two completely different actors in the roles.

[HinkyDinkyTruesmith]

Greta Garbo as the female lead in Love (1927) and Anna Karenina (1935). Also in the English-language and German-language versions of Anna Christie (1930).

There's a handful of films like Anna Christie, which is technically a simultaneous production rather than a remake. Chevalier and MacDonald also performed in the French version of The Merry Widow, if I recall correctly.

[TechnicolorAcid]

However, as with Dracula, the cast was often swapped out entirely.

Assuming you’re referring to 1931 Dracula, that statement is mostly accurate but is also ignoring that Bela Lugosi does actually pops up as the title character several times in the Spanish cut as a result of the crew splicing in unused takes or scenes from Browning’s cut, which happened to have Lugosi as Dracula in the shots

[beamish14]

Laurence Fishburne portrayed gangster Bumpy Johnson in both Hoodlum (1997) and The Cotton Club (1984), although his character is named Bumpy Rhodes in the latter

[therewillbeblus]

It's a bit different, but several actors played various roles across the James Bond film series - for instance Charles Gray was the villain Blofeld in Diamonds are Forever but an amiable contact in the previous film, You Only Live Twice. Joe Don Baker and Maud Adams too, with at least Baker playing both villain and fellow agent