One of the most fascinating trends in the last year of movies was the notion of one actor playing two roles. Whether it’s Michael B. Jordan in Sinners,Robert De Niro in The Alto Knights, Theo James in The Monkey, or Robert Pattinson in Mickey 17, multiple A-listers got the chance to interact with themselves on screen. Although it’s a fun gimmick that can give some actors the chance to stretch outside of their comfort zones, it is quite challenging to play multiple characters with unique and distinctive personalities for an extended period of time. Holding these responsibilities over the course of the entire series would seemingly be an impenetrable difficulty for even the most talented of actors, but Anaconda star Paul Ruddpulled it off remarkably well in the underrated Netflix series Living With Yourself.
Netflix’s ‘Living With Yourself’ Puts a Smart Spin on a Familiar Premise
Rudd stars in Living With Yourself as the copywriter Miles Elliot, who is in the midst of a difficult relationship with his wife Kate (Aisling Bea), as they are struggling to conceive a child. Beyond the fact that Kate, a respected interior architect, is far more successful and fulfilled than he is, Miles is stung by the criticism that he is not present enough in their marriage. It’s after an unusual encounter with a co-worker that Miles finds that a cloned version of himself has been created, and that they may be able to team up to tackle their collective responsibilities. Living With Yourself understands the inherent conflict that comes with stories about clones. Eventually, only one of them will end up having complete control over their shared life.
Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Personality Quiz Which Sci-Fi Hero Are You Most Like? Paul Atreides · Captain Kirk · Princess Leia · Ellen Ripley · Max Rockatansky
Five iconic heroes. Five completely different ways of facing an impossible universe. One of them shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of refusing to back down. Eight questions will tell you which one.
🏜️Paul Atreides
🖖Capt. Kirk
✊Princess Leia
🔦Ellen Ripley
🔥Max Rockatansky
01
How do you lead when the stakes couldn’t be higher? The way you lead under pressure is the most honest thing about you.
02
What is your greatest strength in a crisis? The quality that keeps you alive when everything else fails.
03
What is the thing you’d sacrifice everything else for? Your deepest motivation is your truest compass.
04
How do you relate to the people around you? Who you are to others under pressure is who you really are.
05
You’re facing a threat that no one else believes is real. What do you do? How you respond when you’re the only one who sees it defines everything.
06
What has your heroism cost you personally? Every hero pays. The question is what — and whether they’d pay it again.
07
How do you feel about the rules of the world you’re in? Every hero has a relationship with the system. What’s yours?
08
When everything is on the line, what keeps you going? The answer is the most honest thing about you.
Your Hero Has Been Identified Your Sci-Fi Hero Is…
Your answers point to the iconic sci-fi hero who shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of facing the impossible.
Arrakis · Dune
Paul Atreides
You carry a weight most people would crumble under — the knowledge of what you’re capable of, and the burden of what you might have to become.
You see further ahead than others and you plan accordingly, even when the vision frightens you.
You are driven by loyalty to your people and a sense of destiny you didn’t ask for but can’t escape.
Paul Atreides is not simply a hero — he is someone who understands the cost of power and chooses to bear it anyway.
That gravity, that willingness to carry what others won’t, is exactly you.
USS Enterprise · Star Trek
Captain Kirk
You lead with instinct, warmth, and an absolute refusal to accept a no-win scenario — because you’ve always believed there’s a third option nobody else has thought of yet.
You take the mission seriously without ever taking yourself too seriously.
Your crew would follow you anywhere, not because you demand it, but because you’ve earned it.
Kirk’s genius isn’t tactical — it’s human. He reads people, bends rules with purpose, and wills outcomes into existence through sheer conviction.
That combination of warmth, audacity, and relentless optimism is unmistakably yours.
The Rebellion · Star Wars
Princess Leia
You are the kind of person who holds the line when everyone else is losing faith — not because you’re fearless, but because giving up simply isn’t something you’re capable of.
You lead through conviction. Your voice carries because your belief is unshakeable.
You gave up everything ordinary the moment you chose the cause, and you’ve never looked back.
Leia is not a supporting character in her own story — she is the moral centre of the entire rebellion.
That same fierce, principled, unbreakable core is what defines you.
The Nostromo · Alien
Ellen Ripley
You are not reckless, not grandiose, and not particularly interested in being anyone’s hero — you just refuse to stop when it matters.
You see threats clearly, you document the truth even when no one listens, and when the time comes you handle it yourself.
Ripley’s heroism is earned, not performed. She doesn’t have a speech — she has a flamethrower and a plan.
You share her composure under the worst possible pressure, and her refusal to pretend the monster isn’t there.
When it counts, you don’t flinch. That’s everything.
The Wasteland · Mad Max
Max Rockatansky
You have been through fire that would break most people — and what came out the other side is something the world underestimates at its peril.
You don’t ask for help, don’t need validation, and don’t wait for anyone to tell you the rules no longer apply.
Your loyalty, when it finally arrives, is absolute — but it’s earned in silence and tested in action, not in words.
Max is not a nihilist. He is someone who lost everything and found, against his will, that he still has something worth protecting.
That bruised, stubborn, ultimately human core is exactly yours.
Even before the sci-fi premise was introduced, Living With Yourself offered a more vulnerable and sensitive role for Rudd, who is best known for playing comedic, charismatic characters. Living With Yourself cast him as a man who has become trapped within the mundanity of his life. Despite aspirations of being a more exciting and involved person, Miles is both unable to take risks and not entirely sure what he would do if he were given the freedom of more time. Much of the joy of the early episodes of Living With Yourself comes from Miles beginning to realize how much of his life he has simply let pass him by; at the same time that he is reaching a new level of self-actualization, his clone is beginning to desire a life of its own. Ironically, it takes the presence of someone trying to impose upon his life for Miles to take accountability for his own responsibilities.
Cloning is a theme that has been tackled in countless sci-fi stories, but Living With Yourself takes a nuanced approach to the notion of creating a double and the ethical question marks that it may spark. A clone does not have a backstory or past that they can draw upon, as they are ultimately made to embody someone whose life they cannot fully have. Living With Yourself is a unique spin on the concept because both versions of Miles have both virtues and flaws, making it more challenging to label one or the other as a villain. It’s also a savvy approach to what a realistic process of human cloning might look like, given that Miles is not entirely aware of what he is signed up for, and has no means of contacting the authorities because of the illegal nature of the scientific experiment.
‘Living With Yourself’ Has One of Rudd’s Greatest Performances
Rudd is often a much better dramatic actor than he is given credit for, and Living With Yourself served as a unique way for him to play out the internal anxieties of a deeply troubled character. Part of Miles’ frustration with the existence of his clone is because of his own feelings of self-hatred, as he sees his new twin’s success as proof that he did not live up to his potential. Although Living With Yourself gives Rudd more than enough opportunities to show what a skilled physical comedian he is — particularly in a hilarious fight scene when both versions of Miles are brawling with one another — it’s a performance that also allowed him to dig into the insecurities of a middle-aged man. The chemistry he shares with Bea is also strong, as they convey the marital stresses of a couple who still love one another, but do not feel that they have the same passion that they shared when they first met and fell in love. Given the sparsity of the extended cast, it’s impressive that the sheer force of Rudd’s charisma was able to keep the series moving at the right pace.
Living With Yourself is the type of experimental series that could have only existed in the era where Netflix was greenlighting high-concept projects that may have had limited commercial viability. It’s hard to imagine Living With Yourself existing on a network, given the production budget and explicit content, and also because it’s a story that only works when serialized and available to binge. At the same time, it’s not a concept that could have worked as a feature film, as there are simply too many nuances and misadventures packed in between the major plot points in Living With Yourself for it to have ever worked as a streamlined movie.
Living With Yourself might technically be classified as a dramedy, but it’s not a sitcom, and its ambiguity might be its biggest strength. Although it was never technically classified as a miniseries, the lack of renewal after six years would imply that Rudd will never get the opportunity to play the role of Miles again. Great television should be as entertaining as it is thought-provoking. Like so much of Rudd’s best work, it is a show that is simply begging to be rediscovered and re-assessed.
