FORKS — Fans around Forks might begin to have more “Edward sightings” because of the town’s newest resident.
Calling himself the “world’s most Twidentified man,” Ian “Buzzsaw” Barnes picked up and moved from Seattle to Forks.
An uncanny resemblance with Robert Pattinson has resulted in many requests for photos, even at his grandfather’s funeral.
“Just because he happens to look like me, people were always mistaking me for him,” Barnes said.
Pattinson plays Edward Cullen, the enigmatic vampire hero of Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling Twilight saga.
The first three movies have been blockbusters and the fourth book, Breaking Dawn, will be split into two movies, the first of which will be released in November 2011.
Barnes asserts that he was frequently “mobbed.”
“At my grandfather’s funeral, someone came up to me to talk,” he said.
“I thought she was going to say nice job on singing, since I had sung a song, but instead she was saying that I looked just like ‘RPatz’.”
“RPatz” is the common nickname for Pattinson, as he frequently signs his name as Rob Patz.
That was in November, and it was the last straw for Barnes.
“At that point, I knew I had to come to Forks and try and make something out of this,” he said.
He quit his job as a welder and began making contacts in Forks.
Now he has a small shop at 41 S. Forks Ave., where he sells trinkets and takes pictures with fans.
“I’ll have them in there laughing and laughing for like an hour sometimes,” he said, launching into an imitation of various Pattinson looks.
He is also working on a book and a documentary about himself and what it is like to look like the pop culture’s current most famous vampire actor.
Friend and photographer Landon McAllister follows Barnes around taking pictures, which the pair sell to fans for $10 a piece.
Barnes said he has previously had tried to form some business relationships but too many people wanted to call him by his doppelganger’s — or rather the character’s SEmD name.
“I don’t mind if the fans call me Edward,” he said.
“But they would do it at business meetings.”
Despite his current “day job,” he said he likes to maintain his own identity — and prefers Ian or “Buzzsaw” when he is not taking pictures as “RPatz.”
He has formed a partnership of sorts with Charlene Leppell, who owns Twilight Central, a portion of Leppell’s Flowers and Gifts.
They send fans each other’s way, Leppell said.
“He came around here some time ago, and we wondered if maybe it really was the actor,” Leppell said.
“As long as people are attacking him, he might as well do something with it.
“And what better place to do that than Forks — the hometown of Edward himself?”
Barnes said eventually he hopes to get picked up by an agent to do full-time Pattionson double work, but until then he is enjoying taking photos with fans in Forks.
He and McAllister do not keep regular hours, but when they are not found in their shop, they can frequently be found roaming the streets of downtown Forks, Barnes said.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
