When Ricky Gervais’s BBC Two comedy series The Office became a global sensation, it didn’t just change the comedian’s life. It changed the life of Tim Oliver. Since 2004, the year after the hit show ended its original run in the U.K., Oliver has performed as a David Brent impersonator, and to this day, he makes his living pretending to be one of the most iconic comedy characters of all time.
Oliver is hired for almost every imaginable event: bachelor parties (called “stag dos” in the U.K.), weddings, promotional videos, awards ceremonies, corporate speeches. He displays the results of his work on TikTok and Instagram, where he has 51.5k and 13.6k followers, respectively. He’s distinct from a lot of his peers in his sheer commitment to the job. Many look-alikes will simply turn up and look like their doppelgänger, but Oliver embodies Brent for hours and hours, quoting beloved routines from The Office and improvising in character himself.
According to Oliver, Gervais is aware of his work. They met when Oliver worked as Gervais’s body double on 2014’s Muppets Most Wanted, and Oliver’s website features a quote from Gervais that reads, “Tim is the best!” (Gervais himself is no stranger to the world of look-alikes. In 1998, before the fame that came with The Office, he co-wrote and starred in a TV episode in which he played a middle-age man who believes he can make it in show business as a David Bowie impersonator.) Oliver, whose voice and mannerisms are startlingly similar to Brent even when he is not performing, talked earlier this month about his strange 20-year career playing the character and what it’s like to make a living as someone else.
When and why did you start this line of work?
I started in 2004. Before that, I was running an events company. I had a PA, Sophie, and she said, “Have you seen that TV show called The Office on a Monday night on BBC Two? You sound just like the guy that’s on it.” So I watched it and I was like, “No, I’m never gonna do that.” But I ended up doing it, and I love it. I thought, It would be criminal not to do something about this. I just hope it never ends. Well, it will end — quite soon, I imagine.
Has your profile been helped by Instagram and TikTok?
Yep. The last two years with TikTok and Instagram have been crazy. And LinkedIn as well — because LinkedIn’s more business-to-business, which is where David Brent fits in. David Brent fits in pretty much everywhere, to be fair. I’ve even done a wake before. I think I’m busier than I’ve ever been.
How does it feel to do this professionally? When you describe it as an occupation to other people, it sounds insane.
It is weird. When people approach me on the street and say, “Are you Ricky?” or whatever, it’s very weird and hard to get used to at first. When people do recognize you, you almost go, Phew, I do still look like him. I can still make some money out of this. I can switch off — I’ve got kids and I’m married — but sometimes I say stuff and I think, Oh, God, I sounded just like Brent then. I think I’ve morphed into him, to be fair.
Is it frustrating or odd to be so reliant on one person and their career?
It’s always at the back of your mind as a little worry, because you don’t really know the celebrity. I’ve met him and I’ve been his body double. You just hope that nothing ever happens that could ruin your career.
Gervais has been criticized for his routines about trans people. Do you feel like you’re protected because you’re more associated with Brent than Gervais?
That’s such a good question, and it often crosses my mind. I often have to adjust what I say in different environments. When The Office came out, it was a different time, so a lot of the things that were said in The Office back then, in a real-life environment — on a conference or at a wedding or whatever — you wouldn’t say them as an entertainer. Because it’s not like being Ricky where you’re standing up onstage, people have paid hundreds of pounds to come see you, and there’s thousands of people there, and he just says whatever he wants and it’s brilliant.
I did an Office quiz a couple of years ago in an office in Central London. I used the word “transvestite,” and you can’t use that word now. This young HR girl told me, and people overheard her on the mic. She obviously didn’t really know the character that well, so she said, “Oh, you can’t say that word.” They were all waiting for me to say something that Ricky would have said, so as she was walking away, I said, “Oh, sorry, ginge.” She had long red hair, so I said that, and everyone cracked up laughing. Because I was in character, it went down really well. Her boss came up to me afterwards and said, “Thank you for putting her down a little bit because she’s very, very anal about everything.” That was the only time I’ve ever really experienced something like that, because I do adjust myself depending on what environment I’m in at the time. Ricky’s worth half a billion pounds now, so he’s probably like, “If I get canceled, it won’t affect me at all,” whereas me, I need to be rehired, so I need to keep being good.
Do you ever break character? How hard is it when you don’t have a script?
If there’s a large number of people and you’re there for two hours, you tend not to break character, because you’ve got loads of different people to talk to when you’re mixing and mingling. When there’s a small group of people, like a stag do, they’re interested in you; they want to ask you questions. If you answered those personal questions back as Brent, it would be rude. So I always come out of character. Even when I’m answering their questions out of character, they go, “You’re in character, though, aren’t you?”
I filmed a TV show called Lookalikes, and I was the main character in it. The production company hired a Robert De Niro and a Tom Cruise from the States, and they were Method. We were in the greenroom, so we’d all start talking to each other about our lives. They wouldn’t break character at all. They were brilliant at what they did, but when they left, we were all quite disappointed that we couldn’t talk to them about their real lives.
Have you witnessed quite intimate moments — on stag dos, for example?
There’s never really been anything where they break down and they don’t end up getting married. There’s obviously some awkward moments, because lads are lads. On stag dos, I do this thing called “The Mr. and Mrs. Quiz.” Sometimes the fiancée gets involved with a video of her answering some of the questions that the lads have asked, and they’re very personal. They might say something like, “Where was the weirdest place you’ve ever had sex together?” And the guy would go, “Oh, once we did it in a train carriage.” But the fiancée has said, “Oh, no, it was in my dad’s basement next to the wine rack.” And they go, “Oh … don’t remember that.” Brent picks up on that and makes everyone else laugh about it.
Your voice is so similar to Ricky’s. Have you looked into whether you’re from exactly the same area?
I’m from Sussex and he’s from Berkshire, so I’d say stuff like, “Ooh, let me tell you something,” whereas he’d go, “Let me tell you summat.” There’s those small distinctions between us. People always say to me, “Is that your real voice?” And I go, “No — no, in real life I’m Glaswegian.”
Are you comfortable telling us how much money you make?
I never talk about money. I do okay. It allows me to drive a nice car and live in a house and go on holidays, put it that way.
How much writing is involved?
There’s lots of material, and I personalize stuff as well. When Ricky did the Golden Globes, a lot of people hired me as a host as Ricky, not as David Brent. They’d give me a load of dirt on upper management, and I would just rip it out of them. People love when you take the mickey out of people in authority. I write it very much Ricky-style. It’s lovely to be able to put something in writing and then deliver it in a comical way.
Are you close with other look-alikes?
In 2010, I went on Britain’s Got Talent with six other look-alikes, and we were the Chippendoubles — there was me, David Beckham, Gordon Ramsay, Will Smith, Mr. T, Simon Cowell, and Daniel Craig. We’ve got a Chippendoubles WhatsApp, which we all communicate on a daily basis. We all converge onto London on occasion and all meet up and go out for dinner and stuff. It’s a lovely community, the look-alike community. Everyone knows everyone, because it’s very small.
Do you have any idea what Gervais thinks of you?
He’s fine with it all. What I try and do is make sure he’s aware of anything that I might be doing that could go a bit into the public domain. I’ve often thought I could do something really bad and then say, “Ricky, if you want me off the scene, pay me off — I only want £5 million.”
Related
