for character in characters:
    if character:
        match = matchre.match(character)
if match:
    actor = match.group(1).strip()
if match.group(2):
    parts = splitparts.split(match.group(2))
for part in parts:
    pairs.append((actor, part))
else:
    pairs.append((actor, ''))
print(pairs)
Using regex to extract information from a string