Meet the Peaky Blinders superfan who bears a striking resemblance to Tom Hardy’s character and says he’s regularly mobbed by fans mistaking him for the star.
Aron Walker, 37, is a huge fan of the BBC drama and started donning a flat cap, long coat and full beard – to look like his favourite character, Alfie Solomon, played by Tom Hardy.
Aron didn’t initially see the resemblance but says strangers came up to him in the street mistaking him for the star.
He says he and his friends – who also dress up as characters from the show – even infiltrated the Peaky Blinders set in Castle field, Manchester, in June, 2022 causing confusion.
Aron’s friend, Scott Blowers, 50, an installation manager, is also often mistaken for Tommy Shelby – played by Cillian Murphy – and his other pal, Steve Pritchard, 42, a Truck Driver, is the spitting image of Arthur Shelby, played by Paul Anderson.
Aron has even turned being a doppelgänger into a career and has once earned £600 working as a performer where he does meet and greets as well as working behind the bar.
Aron, a barman, from Liverpool, Merseyside, said: “What we’ve done is finding the best of the best of people that look like characters from the show.
“You also have got to make sure they are right person for the job.
“The job we do, and we never take it too seriously, it’s all about having fun as well.
“It’s important to get things exactly right. The better the costume, the better it’s going to look and when we are entertaining the crowd which is brilliant.”
In June, 2022, Aron and his crew were heading for a photoshoot at the same time as the Peaky Blinders were filming in the area of Castle field, Manchester.
These security guards mistaken them for the main characters and let them through on set which caused disruption with the fans.
Aron said: “It was very surreal, and we went down for a photoshoot round the area where they were filming. As we were walking up and the securities looked at us and waved us straight in and we had the free run of the set.
“There was big piles of coal and Shelby signs everywhere and it was so cool. We were there for an hour and a half, and we looked on social media and people were saying the peaky blinders of us on Twitter, and we went viral.
“There was about 250 people following which I didn’t really like too much.”
Along Aron’s journey he has also been gifted some accessories that he can use when he goes to these events.
He has been gifted shoes from Loake as well as rings and he even an Alistair Cook long coat which is a prominent outfit in the series.
Aron’s career kickstarted in the Peaky Blinders bar in Liverpool where he was spotted as a really good Alfie Solomon’s. Next he then opened the Peaky Blinders bar in Manchester and the rest is history.
Aron said: “We did bar work and then between that we did private events over in Benidorm and done cruises over in Amsterdam and done Peaky blinder nights at a gold club on the Isle of white.
“There is always something to do and It’s something I’ve done for quite a while but I do enjoy it, If I wasn’t enjoying it, I would’ve stopped doing it.”
