The guy that said actor is impersonating? He's found dead some days later - and the dude who hired Kogoro not only is the killer, but he he had used Kogoro to have an alibi for said murder. but in a subversion, said man turns out to be a Body Double. In an early case, Kogoro is given the supposedly easy work of spying on a certain man in exchange for a large sum of money.However, Sakura's spiritually sensitive brother Touya is fully aware that it's not really Sakura, but plays along anyway. A fairly innocent example occurs in Cardcaptor Sakura through Sakura's use of the Mirror card to stand in for her when she has to do some emergency card-catching.In Attack on Titan, the Survey Corps use Jean and Armin as body doubles for Eren and Historia/Krista when necessary, due to the latter's Living MacGuffin status.In Ashita no Nadja, Rosemary becomes Nadja's body double and the accomplice of Smug Snake Hermann.Yes, she's one for THAT Shiro, who is actually dead in this story. The plot of Amakusa 1637 heavily leans on lead female Natsuki becoming one of these for a local swordsman, Shirou.There's also kind of a subversion: rose-haired Lemrina does not look like Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold Asseylum, so she uses holographic disguises to fix that. and the one who goes around in a wheelchair and makes speeches is her half-sister, Princess Lemrina. Much later, after Asseylum is shot in the back at the end of the first season, she is in a Convenient Coma for a good part of the second one.First, Princess Asseylum was apparently killed in the first episode, but the one who died was her body double and she managed to get away to safety, reappearing very soon afterwards.Since this trope is often part of a Reveal, be warned that there are inherently SPOILERS below. Ideal for this purpose would be an Identical Stranger, but This Is Reality, and those who don't live in a genre where such a convenient person exists will just use a person who looks passably similar.

For other types of impersonators, see Celebrity Impersonator. The term itself may also show up being used for the practice of having a stand-in for film and television actors, which includes other tropes like Talent Double, Stunt Double or Obvious Stunt Double.

See also Decoy Leader, when a leader uses someone else to pose as them, while not necessarily looking anything alike. See also Decoy Getaway for a practical application of a Body Double. If the double is covering up for the fact that the leader is actually dead, it's an El Cid Ploy. Related to Emergency Impersonation, I Am Spartacus. Usually a job for a member of the Hero Secret Service. Even if doubles don't 'take an assassin's bullet', their deployment will at the very least complicate any assassination plots, as the planners will get intel about the leader being in many locations at once. Saddam Hussein reportedly had over 50 doubles that he used at various times, and other notorious leaders like Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler have also had confirmed body doubles.

This is Truth in Television generally, the more paranoid a leader, and the more people who want to kill them, the more doubles they will have. In more modern works the close resemblance may be explained away by Magic Plastic Surgery or espionage agency-level disguise work, while science fiction settings may use Send in the Clones and have clones made with this purpose in mind.

Though this is still used today by some leaders, before the advent of modern photography this was much easier to pull off, since the average person would probably not know what the leader looked like outside of a vague description or drawing, and would rely on clues from the Requisite Royal Regalia (wearing a crown, wearing a purple robe, riding in a golden carriage, etc) making any differences between the double and the real person less noticeable. When important figures feel they need extra insurance against assassins, someone takes on their appearance and role, especially in higher-risk situations. The Editing Room's abridged script for Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

Vision of shadows warriors book 3