Walking along a remote beach in Papua New Guinea, Shad Ellis found himself having a heart-to-heart with Will Smith, one of the most recognisable faces on the planet.
The twist? The face the London Tube driver's gaze alighted on looked uncannily like his own.
The 47-year-old has made a career out of being a Will Smith lookalike and tribute artist since he was 18.
But after three decades of "getting jiggy with it" for fans across the globe, he was finally telling the Hollywood star how much that resemblance had changed his life.Although he now lives in Bedford, Ellis was born and raised in the capital.
While the Fresh Prince famously began his story on a playground in West Philadelphia, Ellis's unfolded deep within the Underground in east London.
It was 1997 and posters for Men In Black were plastered across the tube network.
At Shadwell, the resemblance between the Hollywood star on the walls and the then station assistant behind the barrier was impossible for commuters to ignore.
"I had regular customers coming through the station saying 'oh my god, you look like Will Smith'," Shad recalls.
"They'd call me 'Will' jokingly and I thought nothing of it. OK, there's a little similarity, that's all it is."$XRP
