A lookalike is a person who bears a striking resemblance to a celebrity, sometimes by nature and sometimes with a little help from wardrobe and hair. Some turn it into a job at parties and on television; others enter contests for the sheer fun of being mistaken for someone famous.
In October 2024 a Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest drew hundreds of people to Washington Square Park in New York for a 50-dollar prize, and the actor himself appeared in the crowd, posing for photos with one of his doubles. The story everyone tells next is older and far less reliable. Charlie Chaplin supposedly entered a Chaplin lookalike contest and lost, finishing anywhere from third to twentieth depending on the version. The official Chaplin archive traces the tale to a 1918 press clipping, notes the inconsistent retellings and says Chaplin himself called it a legend in a 1966 interview. A perfect anecdote, sadly too perfect to be true.