Shad Ellis/Instagram; Steve Granitz/FilmMagic
NEED TO KNOW
A man made a career for himself as a Will Smith look-alike at age 18
Shad Ellis has appeared as the actor's doppelgänger at various events over the years, including weddings and bar mitzvahs
Ellis finally met Smith in 2022, and he was able to tell the Men in Black star how "grateful" he is for him
Seeing double?
A man from England has been told he resemblesWill Smithhis entire life. So, when he turned 18 years old, he made a career for himself as alook-alikeof the actor.
Shad Elliswas born and raised in England. In 1997, when posters for Smith'sMen in Blackhung on the walls of theLondon Underground, where Ellis worked, he told theBBChe couldn't keep ignoring the resemblance.
"I had regular customers coming through the station saying, 'Oh my god, you look like Will Smith,' " Shad said to the outlet. "They'd call me 'Will' jokingly, and I thought nothing of it: 'Okay, there's a little similarity, that's all it is.' "
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Shad Ellis/Instagram
One day, Ellis told the BBC that a stranger informed him he had a friend making money as a look-alike, and he believed Ellis could do the same as Smith.
Curious about what opportunities could arise, Ellis took photos of himself recreating Smith's magazine poses, per the outlet, and he was instantly booked.
"Within a week, I had my first job, which was the front cover of an electrical magazine, as they were kind of re-enacting theMen in Blackposters, except we were holding these electronic wind-up torches," he told the BBC.
"From there, I started meeting people, networking, then I'd have jobs, and I'd meet more people, and it just grew," added Ellis.
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Things really kicked off during a night out years later, when Ellis' friends convinced him to perform Smith's song"Miami"during karaoke. It prompted his agent to start booking him tribute artist slots, per the BBC.
"I do anything that you want Will Smith to do, that you couldn't afford to get Will Smith to do," Ellis told the outlet. "So I do a lot of corporate events, end-of-year work parties, weddings, private birthday functions, bar mitzvahs."
Still, Ellis admitted that he has received offers over the years that he has turned down. A lot came in 2022, after Smith, 57,slappedChris Rockat theOscarsfor a joke he made about his wife,Jada Pinkett Smith.
"I turn down so much work because I'm quite protective of him and his brand. [Requestors] have to kind of respect the boundaries and stuff," Ellis told the BBC, adding that he refuses to be "the guy that's been cashing in."
Gilbert Flores/Billboard via Getty
In 2022, Ellis was hired to be a body double forPole to Pole, Smith's National Geographic series in which he trekked across seven continents over 100 days, the BBC reported. According to the outlet, Ellis and Smith crossed paths numerous times during filming, and at one point, after he befriended one of Smith's managers, Ellis asked them, "Can you get me five minutes with Will, but just me and him? I don't want the cameras."
Ellis' request was met, and he and Smith took a walk together on a beach in Papua New Guinea on the last day of filming. There, Ellis recalled to the BBC that he told Smith, "I just want to say how thankful I am and how grateful I am to you just for being you, because you've enabled me — a person that you had no idea probably exists — to do some amazing things."
Smith had a positive response, Ellis told the BBC, and the pair have since reconnected in recent years. And while he still works for the London Underground amid his doppelgänger duties, Ellis told the outlet he plans to keep his Smith impersonation up for as long as he can.
"Every year I wake up, and I'm like, 'Am I going to keep going with this?' Then it's like, 'You know what? I'm going to keep doing this until I don't look like him — or all my hair falls out,' " he said.
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