Today, we look at five movie characters that went undercover using their actual names.
In Drawing Crazy Patterns, I spotlight at least five things from pop culture that fit under a specific theme (basically, stuff that happens frequently enough to be worth pointing it out). Note that these lists are inherently not exhaustive. They are a list of five examples (occasionally I’ll be nice and toss in a sixth). So no instance is “missing” if it is not listed. It’s just not one of the five examples that I chose. You can always feel free to suggest ANOTHER example that fits the theme, if you’d like, but nothing is “missing” from this list.
September is a month of Drawing Crazy Patterns!
Often times in films, characters have to go undercover. Typically, they come up with fake names, but occasionally, they do just fine using their actual names. Here are five times using their real names worked for undercover characters in films.
LUKE SKYWALKER AND OBI-WAN KENOBI
As the joke goes, “Hmmmm…I have to hide Luke Skywalker from Anakin Skywalker, so where should I hide him? I know, I’ll leave him with Anakin’s half-brother and keep his name Luke Skywalker. Who’s going to notice?” And, of course, Obi-Wan Kenobi was correct, but still! Meanwhile, in 1977’s Star Wars, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) hides on Tatooine nearby Luke to keep an eye on him, and totally disguises himself by changing his name to BEN Kenobi, which disguises him so well that the moment Luke (Mark Hamill) hears Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) say, “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Luke is, like, “Well, there’s Ben Kenobi,” which makes it pretty clear that the name Kenobi is not a common one, so, like, what’s the deal, Obi-Wan?! It’d be like if Grigori Rasputin went into hiding, and people were looking for him, and they said, “Grigori Rasputin? Well, there’s Joe Rasputin down the block. Maybe that’s him?”
H.G. WELLS
There is a cute bit in the 1979 film, Time After Time, where H.G. Wells, having traveled to the present day via a time machine, tries to come up with an alias that he figures no one will know, and so he uses “Sherlock Holmes,” figuring the character would be obscure by this point in time. He was, of course, incorrect. Luckily for him, no one really knows what the H.G stands for in his name, so he just used his full name, Herbert George Wells, and that worked perfectly well as an alias.
JAMES BOND
In the 1997 film, Tomorrow Never Dies, James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) goes undercover as a banker to get close to the bad guy. His undercover name? James Bond. Bond also just uses his real name in Casino Royale, as well, but there, he is doing it because he assumes the guy he is trailing knows he is a spy, and since he knows it already, why bother hiding?
PADME NABERRIE
Like mother, like son, as in 1999’s Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace, Queen Amidala (Natalie Portman) pulls a Luke and Obi-Wan and goes undercover as one of her own handmaidens while using the name Padmé Naberrie, which is actually her real name, as Amidala is a name she received when she became Queen. So it’s Queen Padme Amidala, with Naberrie being her original surname.
RON STALLWORTH
In the 2018 film, BlacKkKlansman, John David Washington plays Ron Stallworth, who goes undercover in the Ku Klux Klan, interacting with the Klan over the phone, using his real name. He enlists his neighbor (played by Adam Driver) to go undercover as Ron Stallworth when it comes time for the actual in-person meeting (of course, Driver’s appearance makes the Klan members question whether Stallworth is secretly Jewish).
Okay, folks, if you have suggestions for a future Drawing Crazy Patterns, drop me a line at brian@poprefs.com! I don’t have 30 topics just yet, so I could use the suggestions!
In fairness, James Bond did that a lot.
It becomes a minor plot point in “DIE HARD” when John McClane’s ex-wife goes by her maiden name. It does confuse Hans Gruber for a while.
When Buffy ran away to L.A. in “BUFFY, THE VAMPIRE SLAYER,” she chose her middle name as an alias.
And of course, there was the first costumed identity of Artemis Crock in the first season of “YOUNG JUSTICE,” which was just…Artemis, her first name. No one who wasn’t already a superhero figured it out. It helps to be named after a goddess!
In the comics and cartoons, both Harley Quinn and Mystique have gone undercover using their real names. You’d think “Harleen Quinzel” is too unique a name for that to work, but Gotham is also a city which has never figured out that if they destroyed or bugged any structure which alluded to clowns or carnivals, the Joker would never have a hideout again.
My first thought on reading the title of this article was the scene in Casino Royale where Vesper calls out Bond for using his real name when they set him up with a false identity. Of course, it turns out she’s helping the villain, so it really didn’t matter which name he used.
I really wish Lucas had read the Star Wars novelization (Star Wars From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker by George Lucas) where Owen was Obi Wan’s brother. It’s still silly to keep Kenobi and Skywalker instead of giving Luke the last name Lars, but it would make more sense that Vader wouldn’t be familiar with Obi Wan’s siblings. Of course, it does raise the question how Owen and Obi Wan have different last names.
My head-canon has long been that Skywalker is just an incredibly common name in the Star Wars galaxy. There were probably 7 different Skywalkers in Luke’s graduating class alone. (I say this as someone with a name so common I could probably go into witness protection without changing it)
While it’s not exactly what you’re talking about here, I’m reminded of Cary Grant in “His Girl Friday” giving his name as Archie Leach, Grant’s real name.
James, I like that. Then, of course there would be variations on the spelling of the last name like Skywalkyr and Skywelker like we have Johnson, Jonsen, and Johnsen.
my related thoughts (which don’t concern movies)
In the TV series Dark Blue (about a team of cops who do short term undercover operations) – in an early episode their newest recruit, a young woman who had joined the police using a false name while trying to put her shady past behind her, finds her cover id not standing up to scrutiny and, with no usable back-up fake id, has to switch to using her real identity for the undercover operation.
In the Destroyer books, Remo Williams uses a lot of fake ids – all named Remo. The excuse in the books is that it’s hard to fake the automatic response on hearing your name, In the movie (The Adventure Begins / Unarmed and Dangerous) they instead make Remo a fake name.