Why, often in film credits, are the actor’s and character’s name often written as, for example, “Ian McKellen – Gandalf (as Ian McKellen)”, but only for certain cast members?

Question

I’ve seen this a lot on IMDB, and this was just an example using more well-known names. For a direct example, I was looking up the cast for the 1999 film, DragonHeart: A New Beginning, and the lead actor, Chris Masterson, is listed as “Christopher Masterson – Geoff (as Christopher Masterson)”, and another character is ” Vladimir ‘Furdo’ Furdik – Sentry (as Vladimir Furdik)”, but only those 2 actors were listed that way. What does it mean that their character is “as the actor”, but it’s only true for them and not anyone else in the cast?

In: 80

Answer 1

When actors join SAG-AFTRA, which is the actor’s union, they register a professional name. The professional name must be unique as they cannot perform under the same name as another SAG member. That can be a challenge since there are more than 100,000 members.

For example, the actor Micheal B. Jordan cannot perform under his given name, Micheal Jordan because the athlete (and actor) Micheal Jordan registered the professional name Michael Jordan with SAG first.

Sometimes actors have non-union performances that are credited in IMDB and they later have to select a different professional name when joining SAG. Sometimes actors are better known by a name that they are not allowed to perform with because it is already registered.

What you are seeing is a workaround for the actor to be able to use their common name in credits by listing both their professional and common name.