The long and unexpected afterlife of the Timothée Chalamet look-alike contest

Mitchell placed first, and Dueve, second, in the unofficial look-alike contest that saw thousands — including, briefly, Chalamet himself — swarm New York’s Washington Square Park last October. The rest, if ranked at all, fell somewhere behind them in organizer Anthony Po’s lineup.

For some, that day in the park brought community — and opportunity. Over a dozen contestants, added to an Instagram chat dubbed “Brothers Chalamet,” sat front row with Po at a New York Jets game. Mitchell, then a college senior, revived his Goodwill-thrifted Wonka costume for “The Drew Barrymore Show” and was flown out by CBS for the Golden Globes, posing with the real Chalamet on the red carpet. Modeling opportunities followed. Some caught the acting bug themselves.

For Chalamet, the look-alikes became unexpected surrogates running an impromptu guerrilla campaign during his awards season push for the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown.” Each viral moment gave the bit longevity, stretching the contestants’ proverbial 15 minutes of fame.

“Every now and again, I’m like, OK, five minutes up,” Dueve told The Associated Press in Los Angeles in March. “And then I’m like, oh, OK. There’s another thing, and then another thing, and then another thing.”

What’s left, a year after their meeting? A class, united by a weirder than usual day in Washington Square Park and a likeness — often, admittedly, vague — to one of Hollywood’s brightest stars.

Embracing ‘cultural hijinks’

Bobbitt was in line at a food truck during a visit to New York when strangers told him to enter the contest. Arkay, aware he didn’t share a “striking resemblance” to Chalamet but nonetheless a fan, was sent the information by his identical twin brother. (“Anytime we hear the word ‘look-alike,’ our ears perk up,” he said.) Panetta was working as a background actor in Darren Aronofsky’s “Caught Stealing” when he spotted the flyers offering a $50 prize.

Sensing that bubbling interest, photographer Jonathan Hollingsworth came up with a plan: He’d go with a paper backdrop, a digital camera and release forms. Police quickly approached, asking if he was behind the gathering and if he had a permit. “The answer to both was, of course, no,” Hollingsworth said. A summons was issued, the setup came down, and his less-invasive backup — a Polaroid camera — came out.

As the story goes, there were arrests, a move to a nearby playground and a $500 fine, which the invite app Partiful covered (Po declined a similar offer from Chalamet’s team).

Kate Eberstadt had bussed in from Washington, hoping to promote her song “Timmy Chalamet.” She also considered entering — “I do actually look a little bit like I could be a Chalamet cousin,” she said, “maybe more like Pauline (Chalamet, also an actor)” — but opted to observe. That proved fruitful: A video she caught of the real Chalamet posing with Delorenzo, set to her song, was picked up by entertainment outlets. Delorenzo and Conti's subsequent appearance at Eberstadt's February concert thrilled the audience.

Hollingsworth's resulting book, “Call Me Timothée,” was published two months later. “It’s sort of a highbrow presentation of something that you could argue is a little lowbrow,” he said. But “that sort of pure, simple, revelry and joyousness” — the accessible “cultural hijinks,” as he put it — was something he wanted to document.

YouTuber MrBeast included Mitchell and Po among his “Brainrot Avengers” in his 2024 rewind video. Later, Mitchell parodied Chalamet’s “College GameDay” appearance in a digital advertisement for Impossible Foods — an imitation Chalamet, selling imitation meat.

“It’s like a Doppler effect,” Hollingsworth said. “It’s not something everyone just thought, ‘Oh, well, that was fun,’ and walked away from.”

Harnessing Chalamet's wide appeal

A two-time Oscar nominee, Chalamet has maintained appeal among mainstream and very-online audiences alike since he broke out, balancing critically acclaimed indies like “Call Me By Your Name” with blockbusters like “Dune.” Ahead of his “Saturday Night Live” appearance as host and musical guest, fans joked he should perform the infamous “Statistics” rap, a high school-era video that periodically resurfaces. Chalamet, whose representatives didn't respond to the AP's multiple requests for comment, opted instead for deep-cut covers of Dylan.

Sergio Slavnov, a former hairstylist for Elton John and Neil Sedaka, went to the contest looking for talent for his Avenue Man product line, operating on a premise he had seen play out in his salon chair: Even if they don’t look like Chalamet, people want his tousled waves. (Alas, the actor has recently shaved his head.)

On Oscars weekend in March, Slavnov flew Mitchell and Dueve to Los Angeles to film an advertisement. Surrounded by suited models and holding a 3D-printed Oscar statuette, the pair dressed as Wonka and Paul Atreides earned some nods, stares and at least one salute to “Lisan al-Gaib.” “He’s my idol too,” Slavnov laughed. “He increased my business.”

Slavnov also stepped in to purchase a ticket on the last possible flight for Dueve when the Atlanta security guard got a last-minute invite from the “SNL” team.

“If I didn’t make it, they would have given my spot to someone else,” Dueve said. “Go into Bushwick and I’m sure you can find 10 Timothée Chalamet look-alikes.”

In the January “SNL” promotional video, Chalamet calls for backup from Bobbitt, as Wonka, and Dueve, as Dylan.

“I genuinely can’t sing enough praises for him,” Bobbitt said. “He treated us with the respect that we would expect to give to him.”

“Even when we were on set, the director called out ‘Bob Dylan’ for my name and Timmy was like, ‘Nah, that’s Zander, call him Zander,’” Dueve said.

Kickstarting a trend — and finding friends

Copycat events around the world have honored everyone from Dev Patel and Glen Powell to Zendaya and Shohei Ohtani. A Stephen Colbert look-alike contest turned into a rally in early September, after his late-night show was canceled.

“I was making skits on the internet in 2021, getting like 5 or 6 million views,” Po said. “The greater impact of those is way less than bringing people together in real life. You know, the winner of whatever look-alike competition is going to tell their grandkids about it.”

The “Brothers Chalamet” chat — where invites to comedy gigs and magic shows are frequent — nowadays functions like a support group for the mostly 20-somethings. “We’re the graduating class of the Timothée Chalamet competition,” Dueve said, one bringing together “a bunch of people that probably wouldn’t bother to look past each other on the subway.”

Delorenzo now works at a movie theater that’s planning to put him to good use when Chalamet’s “Marty Supreme” comes out. Earlier this week, he interviewed at a chocolate store. “The joke writes itself,” he said in a text.

Many of the look-alikes indeed had their interest in entertainment careers confirmed or inspired by the response to the contest.

“Best-case scenario: If I do become a really successful actor, then I could say this all came from a YouTuber who made a look-alike contest of another actor,” Mitchell explained. “And then someone is going to make a look-alike contest of me in the future, and someone is going to win that, and then they’re going to become an actor. Just because that sounds so crazy, that is a motivator for me to become an actor.”