I'm a Pope lookalike who's never actually been booked as the Pope

Metro

22-04-2025

A rent-a-Pope lookalike who's never been booked as the Pope and looks more like Jim Bowen than the Pope says it might not be too long until he hangs up his own Pope's cassock.
Brian Holdom has worked as a lookalike for 20 years, bringing Henry VIII, Blofeld from James Bond, and Winston Churchill to events, parties, weddings and more.
The 78-year-old worked in sales and marketing before turning his hand to the lookalike industry, after a friend told him he could make money out of his more than passing resemblance to actor Donald Pleasence.
Despite getting fed up of being approached for autographs over the years – and seeing people get annoyed when he revealed he was not in fact the actor who starred in You Only Live Twice – Brian decided to create his own Blofeld character and turned his mistaken identity into a globetrotting career.
Brian was starring as a Pope in a play at his local theatre about 12 years ago when one of his fellow cast members told him he looked a bit like Pope Francis, who became head of the Catholic Church in 2013 and died on Easter Monday aged 88.
He decided to add the Pope to his repertoire and popped some pictures onto his website – but Brian, from Croydon in south London, tells Metro he's never actually been hired to play the pontiff.
'I performed in a local play, and people were saying at the time when I got the costume on, people were reacting differently around me,' he said.
'People were saying 'you do realise you do actually look like the current Pope', so because I do the other characters I thought I'll add it to my website as a bit of fun.
'I've never actually performed as the Pope as a lookalike though.
'I've had several enquiries over the years but for whatever reason I've never been able to take them up on it.
'There hasn't been much call for the Pope at corporate events and parties, which is what I do the most, the enquiries for the Pope were usually for long shots for films and documentaries.'
This is the first time one of Brian's lookalike subjects has passed away during his career.
His other real-life subjects, Henry VIII and Winston Churchill, died a very long time before he started working as a lookalike, and the characters he plays, Blomfeld from James Bond and The Penguin from Batman, are timeless.
Brian hasn't decided yet whether he will stop offering his services as a Pope lookalike now that Pope Francis has passed away, but seeing as he's never had a paid job as the Pope, his death won't have an impact on his business.
'My main characters which get the most bookings are Blofer, Churchill and Henry VIII in that order,' he explained.
'The most memorable Blofel was played by Donald Pleasence who died several years ago, and he's fictional which immortalised him.
'I was only 19 years old when Churchill died, so I wasn't playing the character then.
'But as I get older and because I've been doing Blofeld for so long I was getting a bit bored of him.
'I have much more fun as Churchill, he's a much warmer character and has great appeal, and the Pope was a nice chap.'
Brian says he's considering when to hang up his cassock and other costumes, and is waiting for his body to tell him when it's time to pack it in. More Trending
'The reason I still do it is it's so much fun. I wouldn't have been able to go to so many places and events in the normal run of life,' he explained.
'I've been over the world, across America and Europe, it's just remarkable.
'Working as a sales director of a company I look back at the meetings and presentations and they were very theatrical in their own way, so I think this was in me looking to get out.'
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