Copyright scmp
Aside from a shared mop of wavy, dark hair, Miles Mitchell and Zander Dueve probably would not be mistaken for each other. Neither would Christian Conti, Spencer DeLorenzo, David Arkay, Vincent Panetta or Dempsey Bobbitt. Yet they now call themselves brothers. The “Brothers Chalamet”, that is, connected by a passing resemblance to one Timothee Chalamet. Mitchell placed first and Dueve second in the unofficial lookalike contest that saw thousands – including, briefly, Chalamet himself – swarm New York’s Washington Square Park in October 2024. The rest, if ranked at all, fell somewhere behind them in organiser Anthony Po’s line-up. For some, that day in the park brought community and opportunity. More than a dozen contestants, added to an Instagram chat dubbed “Brothers Chalamet”, sat front row with YouTuber Po at a New York Jets game. Mitchell, then in his final year at university, revived his 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. Modelling opportunities followed. Some caught the acting bug themselves. For Chalamet, the lookalikes 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 said 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 is 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. Bobbitt was queuing at a food truck during a visit to New York when strangers told him to enter the contest. Arkay, who was aware he did not share a “striking resemblance” to Chalamet but was nonetheless a fan, received the information from his identical twin brother. Panetta was working as a background actor in Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing when he spotted the fliers offering a US$50 prize. 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. A two-time Oscar nominee, Chalamet has maintained appeal among mainstream and online audiences alike since he broke out, balancing critically acclaimed indie films such as Call Me By Your Name with blockbusters such as Dune. Ahead of his Saturday Night Live (SNL) appearance as host and musical guest in January, fans joked he should perform “Statistics”, a now-infamous parody rap video Chalamet made while in school that periodically resurfaces. Chalamet 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 do not look like Chalamet, people want his tousled waves. On Oscar 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 – the character Chalamet played in Dune – and earned some nods, stares and at least one salute to “Lisan al-Gaib” – a messianic term from the sci-fi movie. “He’s my idol too,” Slavnov laughed. “He increased my business.” Slavnov also stepped in to buy a ticket on the last possible flight for Dueve when he 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. 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. Copycat events around the world have honoured everyone from Dev Patel and Glen Powell to Zendaya and Shohei Ohtani. A Stephen Colbert lookalike contest turned into a rally in early September after his late-night show was cancelled. “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 lookalike 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 twenty-somethings. “We’re the graduating class of the Timothee Chalamet competition,” Dueve said. It is a class that has brought together “a bunch of people that probably wouldn’t bother to look past each other on the subway”. DeLorenzo now works at a cinema that is planning to put him to good use when Chalamet’s Marty Supreme comes out. Earlier this week, he went for an interview at a chocolate store. “The joke writes itself,” he said in a text. Many of the lookalikes 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 lookalike contest of another actor,” Mitchell said. “And then someone is going to make a lookalike 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.”
