Retro Express: Walking Amitabh, Talking Shah Rukh, Almost Kareena

Kareena Kapoor has one. So does Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Amitabh Bachchan, Dev Anand, Anil Kapoor - even Madhubala. Hindi cinema has always been crowded with doppelgängers, some of whom didn’t just resemble stars but actively cashed in on that resemblance, headlining films, performing in live shows, and sometimes even replacing the originals on screen.

We’ve all grown up hearing that our faces aren’t unique, that there are at least half a dozen people on the planet who look exactly like us. It’s hardly surprising, then, that an industry built on faces, charisma and mass adoration would spawn its own shadow economy of imitation. These lucky fans didn’t merely copy hairstyles or dialogue delivery; they reproduced swagger, pauses, body language and emotional beats. For small time producers, they were a godsend—stars without the schedules, tantrums or price tags.

It is perhaps a good thing that stars can’t be everywhere and not everyone can afford them. It keeps the lookalikes in business—live shows and orchestras in small town India as well as abroad in cities with large Indian-origin communities are mostly how these “duplicates” make money through the year. Films are few and far between, but when they happen, they often act as body doubles for the stars.

In the earlier decades, especially through the 1970s and 1980s, producers eager to piggyback on blockbusters like Sholay (1975) but lacking the budget for Bachchan or Dharmendra, routinely cast lookalikes instead. In smaller towns and single-screen circuits, the resemblance was “good enough.” Audiences came anyway. Sometimes, they didn’t even mind the difference. A whole generation of duplicate stars flourished well into the 1990s, becoming fixtures in action films, spoofs and musical entertainers.

From sidekicks to full-fledged leads, lookalikes did it all, often pushing boundaries the original stars couldn’t. The ‘duplicate’ became a genre in itself—one that allowed exaggerated performances, cheeky dialogues and outrageous plotlines, precisely because the original stars had to stay on-brand and had reputations to protect. These films were less about finesse and more about familiarity, feeding audiences exactly what they wanted—cheaper, almost paisa vasool entertainment. These films didn’t just imitate stars; they mirrored political moods and social anxieties of their time.

No one understood this better than I.S. Johar, who popularised the spoof-and-duplicate trend in the 1970s. His 5 Rifles (1974) featured lookalikes of Rajesh Khanna and Shashi Kapoor, while Nasbandi (1978) assembled duplicates of Bachchan, Kapoor, Manoj Kumar, and Khanna to comment satirically on the government’s population control drive.

Sholay proved especially irresistible. The cult classic spawned multiple unofficial spin-offs—Ramgarh Ke Sholay (1991), Aag Ke Sholay (1988), Duplicate Sholay (2002)—each riding on the original’s popularity without paying for rights. Often parodic and knowingly absurd, these films thrived in territories where cinematic spectacle mattered more than authenticity.

Written and directed by Ajit Dewani, Ramgarh Ke Sholay exemplifies the era’s appetite for imposters. Featuring lookalikes of Bachchan, Dev Anand, Anil Kapoor, Govinda and others, the film leaned into parody, offering an opportunity to consume resemblance for heroism and letting audiences enjoy the joke.

While male lookalikes dominated the space, female doppelgängers were very much part of this ecosystem. Madhubala’s ethereal beauty inspired imitators such as Priyanka Kandwal and prior to that, Sona, who was cast in films and made to dress like her. She later married Haji Mastan and quit films. In later decades, actresses like Hema Malini, Sridevi, Rekha and Madhuri Dixit had stage performers and screen doubles who built entire careers on their likeness, especially in song-and-dance shows across small-town India and overseas circuits. More recently, Alina Rai went viral for her uncanny resemblance to Kareena Kapoor Khan, echoing how female lookalikes now find recognition largely through social media rather than cinema.

There was a time when Dev Anand’s lookalike, Kishore Bhanushali, became so popular that he began drawing attention away from the original star himself. His charm, public appearances and unmistakable style left audiences stunned. The phenomenon grew so intense that Anand reportedly joked, “Get me films too!” - a moment that perfectly captured Bollywood’s uneasy relationship with imitation and fame .

For others, the resemblance translated into steady income. Raju Rahikwar, a Shah Rukh Khan lookalike, reportedly earned up to ₹50,000 a month during the peak of SRK’s popularity, performing across the US, UK, Kenya, Dubai and Singapore, wherever the Indian diaspora gathered for nostalgia-fuelled stage shows .

Sunny Deol movies were also great fodder for spoofs and remakes, especially Gadar: Ek Prem Katha (2001) and Aag Ka Gola (1989) (which inspired a spoof by the same name).

Even Karan Johar wasn’t spared, with Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... (2001) finding its way to Kabhi Kranti Kabhi Jung (2004), whose storyline had nothing to do with the original, but featured lookalikes of Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan and Khan.

Often labelled “duplicates,” these men and women formed a close-knit professional community. At its peak, around 300 lookalikes operated within Bollywood’s ecosystem, supported by the All India Lookalike Association, headed by Anil Kapoor’s lookalike Arif Khan. During COVID, the association struggled to raise funds, underscoring how precarious this profession had become.

Arif Khan’s journey mirrors many such stories. A photographer from Akola, his life changed after watching Woh Saat Din (1983). He copied Kapoor’s hairstyle, then his voice and soon found himself performing in hundreds of shows—eventually clocking over 3,000 performances worldwide. Live shows, orchestras, weddings and overseas events became the primary source of income, especially as film roles dried up.

For Shah Rukh Khan’s body double Rizwan Sayed, resemblance turned into proximity. He worked in commercials alongside SRK and doubled for him in films like Om Shanti Om (2007) and Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008), performing even the iconic fire scene where SRK carries Deepika Padukone. Post-2012, however, stage performances proved more lucrative than cinema—until the pandemic brought everything to a halt. Somehow, things never went back to the way they were because now, reels were the new shows and everyone was making them.

Today, the era of the full-time Bollywood doppelgänger has largely faded. Stars are more visible than ever, with their images tightly controlled and endlessly reproduced on social media. The lookalike no longer fills any absence; at best, they briefly trend. But for decades, these almost-stars carried cinema to places the originals couldn’t reach—keeping the illusion alive, one familiar face at a time. Bollywood lookalikes used to be a thriving industry. Today, it is at best virality for a day.