A Chinese actor who recently underwent plastic surgery to look more like Barack Obama has made a career of imitating the U.S. president.
Actor Xiao Jiguo, 29, has become famous for resembling Obama, appearing in comedy skits, movies, and television series. Jiguo told Reuters in a recent interview that he performs comedy routines onstage in "fake English."
"My English is bad, so when I go onstage, I speak in a mix of real English and fake English. I make it up as I go. Nobody understands it," the actor explained, offering an example of his jumbled English speech.
Jiguo, who but four years ago was a migrant worker in China’s Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, will play a low-level gangster named "Black Prince Charming" who looks like Obama in a forthcoming detective comedy film. The movie, titled "Huo Bao"—which appears to translate to "buffoon," "clown," or "ridiculous person" in English—is slated for released in 2016, Obama’s final year in the White House.
According to the Global Times, Jiguo sculpts his eyebrows so he more closely resembles Obama and has even undergone plastic surgery to tweak his facial features to look more like the U.S. president.
"In order to imitate Obama, besides waxing my eyebrows, I only need a shirt, a tie, and a black suit to get by, anywhere," the actor explained.
Jiguo made his television debut on a Chinese talent show in 2012 called the "Chinese Dream Show," after which television and film producers recruited him to fulfill roles in various productions, including a Web-based sitcom about a man’s dating life.
While Jiguo has never met Obama, he studies videos of the president and news stories to learn more about the president.