Anthony “Gilbert” Poe was a little shocked. That’s what the content creator-turned-events organizer told me just before his first annual Timothée Chalamet Lookalike contest. Last month, Abo put up “about 50” paper signs around the West Village to advertise the game, and now more than 100 fake Chalamet and his entourage have laid siege to Washington Square Park. “This event started as a joke,” Bo said. “For me it goes right up to the last minute. But I have a friend who’s working on the set of a movie he’s shooting in Soho. He’s talking about the game and he knows it’s happening. But I’m not sure if it’s him. The safest place to show up.
Po actually looks a lot like the actor we gathered to celebrate, and before he hops on his vintage bike and gets going, the New York City police show up. The crowd began to complain. “I didn’t expect Timothy to be here, but I wanted to see some sexy lookalikes,” said Lola Wayne Villa, a student who learned about the event through a poster. As the police begin issuing summonses (but before they start arresting people), Bo rides by on his bicycle like a top-hatted Pied Piper, with the Chalamet family following closely behind. Apparently, he had no idea the fluff had arrived.
Once in a circle, Po explained the very scientific rules: The audience would get every Chalamet, and the person who cheered the loudest would be crowned king, winning a 6-foot-tall trophy and a giant check for $50. There were a lot of off-duty Chalamets and a few wearing all black dune Screaming “I am a voice from the outside world! I will take you to heaven!”, one is Bob Dylan in a wig, and the other is a spirited Willy Wonka, who is holding a handbag box to complete his look. The cast’s appeal goes beyond humans, and there are corgis and pugs here to compete.
“I don’t like crowds,” Kyle, wearing a black sweater and thin scarf, his curly hair falling into his brown eyes, told me. “But my parents read about it in the newspaper and they really wanted me to do it. People had taken pictures of me at the airport before, thinking I was Timothy.
