Shaun Birley, an Australian travel and fashion content creator, has caused chaos in Taipei airport as Marvel fans mistook him for the Deadpool star and lined up for selfies.
Given that Ryan Reynolds is busy splitting his time between Hollywood, his second home at Wrexham FC, and courting F1 teams for potential investment, you can forgive fans for hoping against hope that they may bump into one of their A-list idols as he travels between appointments.
Travellers passing through Taipei airport this weekend thought mistakenly they’d struck the jackpot when they encountered Australian content creator Shaun Birley, who bears a shockingly close resemblance to the Marvel actor, relaxing in an airport waiting area.
WATCH: Unsuspecting Ryan Reynolds fans line up for photos with the Aussie lookalike.
In the video that Birley posted to his Instagram yesterday evening, he can be seen being approached by a seemingly endless string of dedicated Reynolds fans, mistakenly asking his Aussie lookalike for selfies. In fact, over the course of only a few minutes, Birley racks up almost 15 selfie requests from brave passers-by, along with a host of knowing side-eyes from countless others…
However, speaking exclusively to DMARGE, Birley revealed that the interactions captured in the viral video were only a fraction of the total that he endured during his time in the country…
“I’ve cut that down from a twenty-one-minute video… it snowballed. We walked 300 metres down the road with 50-60 then up to 100 people in tail… Because of the language barrier, I could tell some people ‘I’m not him’, but others were totally lost.”
Shaun Birley
A quick scroll through his undeniably beautiful Instagram profile reveals that Birley has been committed to a look that is shockingly similar to Reynolds’ for quite some time…
Nevertheless, we admire Birley’s flawless commitment to and ability to seamlessly recreate Reynolds’signatuere look and, with fans seemingly none the wiser, there seems to be plenty of happy customers here and, as a result, no harm done.
More power to Birley for not only recognising his resemblance and not only using it to his own advantage but also for making other people’s day, especially in an environment that can all too often be a source of unexpected stress.