Most levels of indirection between Actor and Character

[ronboakes_87114]

Just now, my iPod brought up "Medley from Man of LaMancha" from the Quantum Leap soundtrack album, which renewed my thought -- can anyone site an example of more layers of (for lack of a better term) indirection between the actor and the role being portrayed then occurred in portions of the Quantum Leap that these track is from ("Leaping on a Star" if I recall correctly).

At points in that episode we have Scott Bakula playing Dr. Samuel Becket, who has leapt into an Actor (whose name I cannot recall), who is portraying Miguel de Cervantes in the Play Man of La Mancha, which then has Cervantes playing the role of Don Quixote to entertain his fellow prisoners in the holding cells of the Spanish Inquisition. By my count, this puts 3 layers of indirection between the actor (Bakula) and the character being portrayed (Quixote), where in most cases you get zero, or possibly one.

So, can anyone cite an example with more layers, or another example of 3 (4 or 5 depending on how you count) layers?

Comments

[avt-tor.livejournal.com]

An indeterminate number, certainly less than one, can be found in Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author.

Hard to find examples of three or more. Arguably, the Rough Riders vs. Roughriders game within the documentary Not Without My Anus,/em> in the South Park episode "Terrance and Phillip in Not Without My Anus" is fairly abstract.

Layers

[pamelajaye.livejournal.com]

I wasn't aware of all the details concerning Don Quixote. However, there is also an episode where
Scott Bakula, the actor
play
Sam Beckett, a doctor
who leaps into
An actor (forget the name)
who is
playing a doctor on a sitcom (Moments to Live)

I always found that amusing

Sam Leaped into "Ray"

[abqkelwah.livejournal.com]

Just FYI: In that QL episode, Catch a Falling Star, the actor Sam leaped into was named "Ray", who was the understudy for the lead actor. :) My favorite QL episode, btw. (And I thought I was the only personal in the world who had anything from QL loaded onto her iPod!)