Shad Ellis, a 47-year-old London Tube driver, has worked as a Will Smith lookalike and tribute artist since he was 18.
While on a remote beach in Papua New Guinea, Ellis, who now lives in Bedford, was finally able to tell the Hollywood star, who he uncannily resembles, how much that likeness had impacted his life over three decades.
Ellis’s story began deep underground in East London in 1997. As Men In Black posters covered the tube network, Shadwell commuters noted the station assistant’s striking resemblance to the Hollywood star.
“I had regular customers coming through the station saying ‘oh my god, you look like Will Smith’,” Shad told the BBC. “They’d call me ‘Will’ jokingly and I thought nothing of it. OK, there’s a little similarity, that’s all it is.”
Ellis was encouraged by a stranger to try being a lookalike. Before the age of social media, Ellis used a film camera to recreate Will Smith’s poses from magazines. He then sent these photographs to an agency he had found advertised in a newspaper.
Two weeks later, the agency accepted him, though they cautioned him that only lookalikes of the royal family tend to earn a significant income.
He recounted, “Within a week, I had my first job, which was the front cover of an electrical magazine, as they were kind of re-enacting the Men in Black posters, except we were holding these electronic wind-up torches. From there, I started meeting people, networking, then I’d have jobs, and I’d meet more people, and it just grew.”
Years later, at a karaoke night, Ellis’s friends persuaded him to perform Will Smith’s 90s hit, “Miami.”
He performed the song three times due to its popularity. Afterward, his agent secured him bookings as a tribute artist at clubs across the nation, including Jumping Jacks and Envy.
He said, “I do anything that you want Will Smith to do that you couldn’t afford to get Will Smith to do. So I do a lot of corporate events, end-of-year work parties, weddings, private birthday functions, bar mitzvahs.”
He also does magazine covers and global marketing campaigns that fly him everywhere from Dubai to Singapore.
Today, Shad is a sought-after international model who often travels for magazine and marketing work. He is particular about the jobs he accepts, consistently refusing offers that involve impersonating Will Smith, participating in related humor, or appearing in adult films.
“I turn down so much work because I’m quite protective of him and his brand, they have to kind of respect the boundaries and stuff,” he insists.
After the 2022 Oscars slap, Ellis declined job offers, stating he didn’t want to “cash in” on the incident. However, later in 2022, he accepted a role as Will Smith’s body double for the National Geographic series, Pole To Pole.
His work involved traveling to locations such as Botswana and Norway to set up shots and lighting before Smith arrived. He was also occasionally used for aerial shots when Smith was unavailable.
The lookalike and Smith eventually met on set, sharing a handshake and shoulder bump.
They interacted a few times during filming, and Ellis found Smith “very humble and very appreciative” of his work, often offering encouragement like “good job” or “I appreciate you man,” and even wishing him a happy birthday on set once.
After befriending one of Smith’s managers, Ellis made a request: “Can you get me five minutes with Will, but just me and him? I don’t want the cameras.”
On the last day of filming in Papua New Guinea, a tube driver walked with the movie star on a secluded beach, not to befriend him, but to express deep, long-held gratitude.
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.”
The Bad Boys actor was delighted, calling the lookalike’s work “genius” and immediately hugging him.
The star told Ellis, “Shad, imagine you were doing a show and I came out! We would shut down the internet,” after the lookalike shared that he performs as a tribute artist.
Even now, the memory of filming Pole to Pole remains vivid: “The sun was beating down, it was hot, and I’m sitting there thinking, ‘this is boring as hell,’ but then I realized, ‘yeah, but you could be driving a train.’”
Ellis, who recently attended a crew screening where the actor was present, is keeping in touch with the production teams he encountered overseas. He is hopeful about the possibility of collaborating with Will Smith again.
Despite sometimes questioning his path, Ellis remains committed to this pursuit, stating, “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.”
Even after his brief moment of stardom, Ellis continues to work his regular job as a driver on a London Underground train.
