Thaddeus Kalinoski looked nothing like Zach Galifianakis, until he experienced a failed marriage and his job as a nightclub manager in Baltimore was at stake. He was going through rough times and reached a crossroads where he made the decision to take-off and start a new life. Except his two paths were extremely different ways of life. Imagine a small town dirt road somehow intersecting with the autobahn.
“I fell into this dark place and did all the typical things a guy does when life goes dark – I didn’t shave or cut my hair or do much to make myself look human,” he admitted.
While looking like a homeless and possibly mentally unstable person who had had one too many beers, he made his first pit stop at a Pennsylvania Walmart.
“I picked up these sunglasses, absurdly huge and dark, and put them on in the parking lot. People just stared and I figured it was because I looked like an escaped lunatic,” Thaddeus muses.
“A bar patron asked to take a photo with me and when I asked why he said ‘because you’re him right? You’re Zach Galifianakis’.”
He got many free drinks that same night and several customers also asked to take photos with him. The journey to his full-time life as Zach began at an Atlantic City casino.
“The night is a blur, but I know I didn’t pay for a drink, I easily posed for a hundred photos and I took four girls back to my hotel room that night,” he said, laughing and we can understand why he’s been Zach Galifianakis, more specifically Alan from the blockbuster franchise The Hangover, ever since.
“I don’t remember the last time I paid for a drink. I sit in VIP far too often for a dude who’s not actually famous.”
“There’s a whole performance to the night now, because my roommate looks exactly like me. It’s f***ing creepy. We’ll take turns playing Zach while the other guy dons a lifelike Mike Tyson mask. We even shelled out for an animatronic baby. It looks so damn real I sometimes forget it’s fake,” he explained.
Zach and his roommate live their lives as Alan from The Hangover did even when they’re not working. Las Vegas is treating them with drunk college girls, angry intoxicated tourists and many ‘good-willed’ randoms who offer them free drugs, thinking they are Zach Galifianakis.
Thaddeus Kalinoski became so famous as Galifianakis’ impersonator that he got to meet the actual Zach on a set. Mr Galifianakis wasn’t particularly happy to make his acquaintance.
“When I met him, he was just speechless. He was just looking at me shaking his head,” Thaddeus said.
“On the set he was cold but also, these guys, there’s a lot on the line, they have to focus, he didn’t want to throw himself off.
“After filming he came up to me and we were talking and I kind of told him the whole story and he just laughed about it,” the impersonator continued.
“He made me promise that whenever I do anything crazy, especially with these random women, that they understand I’m not the real Zach Galifianakis.”
Who can blame him?