By DPA,
Jakarta : An Indonesian photographer who has become an instant celebrity due to his resemblance to US President Barack Obama Wednesday said he would keep his day job despite offers to feature in TV commercials as an Obama double.
Ilham Anas, 34, has appeared in a medication commercial in the Philippines and on a popular Indonesian comedy show playing Obama, but he said he expected his fame would be short-lived.
“I may be a little bit famous now but when Obama fever dies down people will forget me,” Anas told DPA.
“I will stick to my job as a photographer. I’m happy with what I do and I do not want it to change,” he said.
Obama, who was inaugurated as US president Tuesday, lived in Indonesia as a child and attended a public elementary school in Jakarta after his mother married an Indonesian man following the end of her marriage to Obama’s Kenyan father.
Anas, who works for a youth magazine called Hai, said it was his family who first noticed his resemblance to Obama.
His fellow photographers later took pictures of him wearing a suit and tie and posted them on the Internet.
Anas said he had continued to receive offers from foreign and local agents to appear in TV commercials but he was trying to resist the temptation of fame.
“I will not live forever and money is not everything,” he said.
But Tuesday night Anas appeared as a guest on popular comedy show, Bukan Empat Mata (Not Four Eyes), along with 2008 Miss Indonesia Zivana Letisha Siregar.
Anas said he was willing to be an Obama impersonator as long as the US president was consistent with his promise of change.
“I hope he will be a just arbiter of global conflicts, restore America’s reputation and be wise in his foreign policy so that America can be a great nation again,” he said.