Probably been asked before, but have there ever been any Super Sentai actors who were also their own suit actors (aside from "oh no his mask has been damaged for this one dramatic scene!" special occasions)? How about Kamen Riders?
It is not very common today mostly because the face actors aren’t trained in stunt work and are too valuable to the production and their agencies to risk them getting injured. There are also the sheer number of really skilled stunt people from Japan Action Enterprises that make the need for people to handle dual roles completely unnecessary. That was not always the case.
Back in the 1970s, some face actors had to be their own stunt actors. For example, in the original 1971 Kamen Rider, Hiroshi Fujioka played Takeshi Hongo and his suited alter ego. As he explained in a recent interview with Josei7,
“The first time in anything comes with hardships, but no one expected the success of Kamen Rider in 1971.That’s why I started filming and using equipment that was not satisfactory in such places like construction sites. Because there was no budget, there was no stuntmen, so I had no choice but to do all myself and give it my best efforts.”
He ended up getting injured after a motorcycle stunt went bad and had to leave the show, resulting in a second Kamen Rider coming in. The in-story explanation was that Hongo went to Europe to fight Shocker there, leaving the new Kamen Rider 2/Hayato Ichimonji to fill in for him in Japan. When Fujioka was healed up, he returned and the ratings soared once the two Riders were working together. As Fujioka put it,
“When I returned, Kamen Rider 1 and 2 got together as double Riders, and got the highest ratings. It was “turning a disaster into a blessing”
In recent years, I can think of only one Kamen Rider who was played by the same person in suit and out and that was Kamen Rider Marika from Kamen Rider Gaim.
Minami Tsukui started out as a stunt actor, a graduate of Japan Action Enterprises and a member in good standing of the group. She worked as a suit actor and a monster of the week performer for many years including in Jyuken Sentai Gekiranger, Kamen Rider W and the Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger movie. She eventually got the role as Marika thanks to asking to play more heroic roles and at the request of the producer of Kamen Rider Gaim. She is a rare exception in the modern day but in the past stunt performers have become face actors several times.
Kenji Ohba started off as a stunt performer and suit actor before finally getting a face role as Battle Kenya in Battle Fever J. He would then go on to act in the sequel series, Denshi Sentai Denziman as Denzi Blue and then took on the title role in the first Metal Hero series, Space Sheriff Gavan in 1982.
