Pied pipers, gravediggers, snake milkers, mattress testers, Netflix viewers and scrum masters. Who are these people and what does their working day look like? In this section we interview people with a non-standard answer to the standard question: What do you actually do?
He walks in half an hour after the agreed time. Muscular body in a gray suit, slow but confident pace, a sports bag over his shoulder. Booking agent Aline Knöpke walks next to him. When she arrives at the sitting area, she carefully places her bulging handbag on the table. “It contains an exact replica of James Bond’s gun. It seems so good that if I took it out now, the whole tent would be in a panic.”
“The past fourteen years I lived an amazing double life.”
Martin, James Bond lookalike
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You could say that the man who just sat down next to her, Martin, is a replica of James Bond himself. The 53-year-old Swiss who prefers to keep his surname to himself is James Bond lookalike. And although it is not certain at the time of the interview whether the premiere of the new Bond film will take place, the doppelganger is busier than ever.
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Martin works as a James Bond lookalike. (Photo: private collection)
“That I look like Daniel Craig saved me from a burnout”
In 2006, British actor Daniel Craig first appeared as James Bond in the movie Casino Royale. A turning point in Martin’s life. The coincidence that he looks like this new protagonist has, in his own words, saved the Swiss from a burnout.
“I was a headhunter in the security industry,” he says. “I was on day and night, not getting any satisfaction from work. One morning a colleague came to my desk. He showed me a photo of Daniel Craig as James Bond and said,” Martin, you should do something with this ! “
Martin signed up with lookalike agency Cars and Stars Events, which has two other Bond doppelgangers on file. The ball started to roll. Martin was booked all over Europe. “I got so much energy from all these experiences that my wife said I looked like a different person.”
Helicopter scenes and pawing women
What that work looks like? Together with the double of the British queen, he staged a kidnapping for a Dutch hockey club party. In Monaco, while recording an advertising video, he was asked to dangle from a flying helicopter. “Sometimes I feel more like a stuntman,” he laughs. “Fortunately I have guts. And experience with martial arts.”
“Some seem to be in some sort of Bond fantasy, going beyond all bounds of decency.”
Martin, James Bond look-a-like
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At openings and corporate parties, the lookalike is often surrounded by fans alongside bondgirls and colleagues. The latter sounds nicer than it is: especially the women sometimes can not stay away from him. Martin: “Some of them seem to end up in some kind of Bond fantasy, and they go beyond all bounds of decency. They reach for my buttocks and arms, as if I’m not a real person.”
“He looked at me as if he saw a ghost”
The real Daniel Craig met Martin only very briefly after he was flown in for a failed movie scene. There had to be extra image: a job for which the real Bond is too expensive.
Martin: “Daniel came out of his dressing room. He stood motionless for a few seconds, about 5 meters away. As if he saw a ghost.” After that day on the film set, Martin was also confused, so he called his mother to ask if she should tell him something. “Fortunately, that turned out not to be the case,” he says laughing.
At the end of this year, Daniel Craig leaves as Bond, so Martin’s adventure comes to an end. “It was great,” he says. “Last fourteen years I lived an amazing double life. Now it’s time to go back to my own Bond girl in Switzerland.”
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