Ursula is Angela Merkel, Christian is Barack Obama and Jochen Florstedt also has a passable Kim Jong-un and Bill Clinton among his flock of lookalikes, if you don’t look too closely.
Yet finding a double for the new chancellor is proving a challenge too far for Florstedt, Germany’s leading theatrical agent for doppelgangers. He started searching when Merkel announced she would be relinquishing power three years ago.
After Olaf Scholz, once known as “Scholz-o-Mat” for his robotic public appearances, secured power last week, Florstedt’s search intensified. However, the 20 or so candidates to play the 63-year-old chancellor have failed to pass muster.
“They don’t have to have acting skills, my doubles are lay people with jobs,” Florstedt said. “But they have to get into the character a bit, if they can’t do that or are too shy they needn’t bother.”
In Scholz’s case, that may involve regurgitating stock phrases in a monotonous voice. That trait prompted one US diplomat to remark that watching water boil was more interesting than discussing politics with Scholz.
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Any actor seeking to emulate the chancellor will also be required to replicate his “Smurf-like smile”. In March a rival politician accused Scholz of “grinning condescendingly like a Smurf”. Confronted with the comment a few days later, Scholz simply said: “I think it’s super. The Smurfs are small, they’re crafty and they always win.”
Florstedt has also been struggling to find doubles for the rest of the new cabinet, including Annalena Baerbock, the foreign minister; Robert Habeck, the vice-chancellor; and Christian Lindner, the finance minister.
“It’s astonishing, there must be thousands of people who look just like them but no one’s come forward except for one Baerbock applicant, but she was too young. Only having dark hair and a nice face isn’t enough.”
Florstedt, 71, set up his agency in 1998 and has himself performed as a lookalike for John Belushi’s character from The Blues Brothers. He has about 85 doppelgangers on his books, who earn from €700 to €1,400 per appearance on television, at events or weddings.
He said social media trolls were not so prevalent when he took on Ursula Wanecki, Germany’s best-known Merkel double, who has appeared in more than 130 TV shows over the past decade. He added: “Wanecki never had any trouble, on the contrary in her home town they call her Frau Merkel in the street, she’s that famous.”
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If a Scholz double ever does come forward, an exciting life beckons, according to Wanecki, 65, an office worker. “A world opened up for me that I never dreamt of,” she said. “It’s a huge adventure that is unfortunately coming to an end.”
