Inside NYC’s Timothee Chalamet Look-Alike Contest

Timothée Chalamet showing up to his own look-alike contest in New York City might just be the most Timothée Chalamet thing the actor has ever done.

The contest — held in Washington Square Park on Sunday, October 27 — drew in thousands of look-alikes, fans and even individuals looking for romantic prospects. For a grand prize of $50, Twin-othées flocked to the Big Apple from all over the country dressed in some of Chalamet’s most iconic looks, drawing inspiration from his film characters and his red carpet moments.

Just as the contest was reaching peak capacity mid-afternoon, Chalamet, 28, snuck into the crowd wearing a baseball cap and a black mask. After revealing himself, Chalamet posed for pictures with some of the look-alikes.

Soon enough, though, the New York City Police Department arrived to ask the crowd to disperse due to the lack of a formal permit, per NBC. The event organizer, Anthony Po — whose flyers and Partiful invite advertising the contest had gone viral on social media — was anticipating some legal trouble.

“I expected to be taken out in handcuffs, so [the outcome] was much better than I thought,” Po, 23, told Us Weekly exclusively at the event, noting that he had a contingency plan in place if he was arrested, but he walked away with a $500 fine. “My bodyguard here, Roberto, he took the fine. So I’m going to be paying him.”

Po told Us that he himself gets told he looks like Chalamet all the time, and that was a main inspiration for the contest.

“Honestly, I’m a big Timothée Chalamet fan,” Po — who has built a following on YouTube, often holding events like this one — told Us. “I think the way he moves through the space is really smart, as an influencer myself.”

While the event attracted dozens of Chalamet look-alikes, many attendees flocked to the Washington Square Arch for alternate motives.

“Two days ago, my friend said to me, ‘Sommer, you should print out business cards for the Timothée Chalamet competition,’ because it is so well-known among my friends that I love nothing more than a tiny, wasting away man,” one attendee, Sommer Mae Campbell, told Us at the event, showing off the unique business cards she brought to hand out. “So I decided to do this: I designed these cards on the internet, and I had them printed at Staples yesterday.”

She continued: “So now I have 500 cards with my face that says, ‘Single 24-year-old woman. Do you want to go on a date with me? Timothées, please email me. I’m dead serious.’”

Another attendee, Jared Dylan Borek, came to the contest looking to scout out the next internet heartthrob for his modeling agency.

“It’s a scrawny white boy parade. It’s perfect. It’s what we look for,” Borek, 24, told Us exclusively. “We’ll see how it turns out. I’m hopeful.”

Keep scrolling for more inside details from the Timothée Chalamet Look-Alike Contest, including a breakdown of all the contestants and, most importantly, the winner himself:

‘A Complete Unknown’ Timothée

While there were many Timothées dressed in all black and others donning Wonka ‘fits, one unique look-alike stood out among the rest.

Dressed up as Chalamet in costume as Bob Dylan for the upcoming biopic A Complete Unknown, 18-year-old Vincent Panetta took a train, a boat and a bus all the way from Vermont to participate in the contest — and yes, he even brought a harmonica.

“I dressed like the biopic because, well, I thought I could promote the movie. I feel like they should be paying me money to be here,” Panetta joked, noting that his favorite Chalamet film is Call Me by Your Name. “That peach scene really won him the Oscar nomination. I brought a peach just in case they want me to do that scene to prove my Chalamet look-alike-ness.”

Like many other contestants, Panetta is used to being stopped on the street when he’s mistaken for the actor.

“One time there was a homeless man who asked me if I was actually Timothée Chalamet, and I went, ‘No,’ and he didn’t believe me,” he shared. “Then I just ran away from him.”

Despite their physical similarities, Panetta never uses his position as a doppelgänger to get a restaurant reservation: “I would never take advantage of people that way,” he said.

Magician Timothée

Blaise Serra intended on coming to the look-alike contest to show off his sleight of hand skills — but as soon as he arrived, he was flanked by fans encouraging him to enter the contest himself.

“I’m a magician, and I thought that it would be really fun to do magic for the Timothée Chalamets and see who reacted the most like Timothée or who had the most silly reaction,” Serra, 25, told Us. “I thought it would be a fun time. And now, the moment I showed up, people are saying that I look enough like Timothée to be part of this thing.”

With a decade in the magic industry (check out his show, Moonlit Magic), Serra admitted that this wasn’t the first time he has been told he resembles the Dune star.

“After Dune: Part Two came out, there was one time in Vegas where people were shouting, ‘Lisan al-Gaib’ [a phrase from the film] at me, and a couple of Dune quotes,” he said. “And I was like, maybe there’s some resemblance, but I didn’t think much of it.”

The Overnight Driver

Chalamet is a New York City native, but many of his doppelgängers came from hundreds of miles away for the competition.

Tristan Garrison drove from St. Louis, Missouri, to enter himself in the contest: “I’m leaving at midnight tonight,” he told Us.

As an actor himself, Garrison, 20, often spends time in Los Angeles, where he’ll get stopped on the street when fans think he actually is Chalamet.

“There was one time I talked to these girls [on the street in Los Angeles],” he recalled. “I had a hood up and I had my glasses on, so only the front part of my hair was out, so I guess they couldn’t tell I was joking. I didn’t full-on say, ‘I’m not really Timothée Chalamet.’ So they might not have realized it. I like to think that they didn’t. It’s funnier that way.”

When “sexy rodent men” were all the rage this summer (especially in regard to Chalamet), Garrison took the phrase as a compliment.

“[It’s a] term of endearment,” he told Us. “I always say back, ‘I like cheese.’ So I’m cool with the little rodent look. I’ll take it.”

A Tale of Two Timothées

Us caught up with two look-alikes who diverge in age, occupation, background and outlook — but they were united in their resemblance to the Call Me by Your Name actor.

Cramer Ekholm was flown out from Wisconsin for the contest by the brand MCoBeauty (he has a following on TikTok, where many of his comments point out that he looks like Chalamet), while Virginia native Bryce Perry was in town touring with Rick West and decided to stop by.

“I don’t really claim it, but I do see it,” Perry, 27, noted to Us of his relationship with his look-alike-ness.

While Ekholm, 18, noted his favorite Chalamet internet footprint moment was the actor’s “Statistics” rap, Perry appreciated his red, sleeveless red carpet look from 2022 (at the time, Chalamet was compared to Chronicles of Narnia’s Mr. Tumnus). Both look-alikes said their favorite Chalamet films are Call Me by Your Name and Dune: Part Two.

Tim-o-Shein

“I’ve been told once before that I give Tim-o-Shein because I look slightly like [Chalamet] but the Walmart version, so I was like, ‘I’ll enter,’” contestant TJ McCaffrey shared with Us. “I’ve gotten it a couple times from people here and there, so I was like, ‘Why not?’”

McCaffrey, 21, is a fan of Call Me by Your Name, but he is fascinated by Chalamet’s relationship with Kylie Jenner as well.

“My favorite thing is probably the whole Kylie Jenner relationship,” he told Us. “I remember I saw a meme once where he was wearing a T-shirt that read, ‘I’m not the stepfather. I’m the father that stepped up.’ And I was like, ‘That’s so real.’”

Only time will tell, but McCaffrey thinks the couple is the real deal: “I see that for them. I see that future,” he said.

The Winner: ‘Wonka’ Timothée

There were many Timmées, but there could only be one winner, and 21-year-old Miles Mitchell took home the $50 prize and oversized trophy.

“I’m gonna buy a bunch of chocolates!” Mitchell, a Staten Island native, told Us when asked what he was planning on doing with his winnings, nodding to his Wonka-themed look. “[It’s surreal] that I ended up winning. It’s so crazy. There were so many people that really did look like him, so it was really crazy.”

Mitchell said that he ordered the Wonka jacket from Amazon just two days before the contest and pulled together the rest of the look from Goodwill.

As for his favorite Chalamet movie and internet meme? Dune: Part Two and Chalamet’s SNL hosting gig, respectively.