Let's Face It...

...this is silly, but fun. What do Uma Thurman, Condoleezza Rice, Marie Trintignant, Greta Garbo, and Toni Morrison all have in common? They all look like me! Or rather I look like them. Or some small part of my features looks a teeny bit like some small part of their features. Heh. I was reading Julie's blog the other day and found the link to the "Find the Celebrity in You" thingy. This is a site where you can upload a photo of yourself, or if you're obsessively inclined like Certain People Who Shall Remain Nameless, but who happen to be writing this post, you can upload several photos of yourself and others, and computer face recognition software will compare your photo to a database of 2,400 celebrities, living and dead, and will tell you who the program thinks you most resemble. Come ON! Who could resist?? The celebrity database isn't just film stars (although many of them are), but also singers, writers, political figures, sports stars, religious leaders, astronauts, and others. I found it completely fascinating to see who they came up with and to see if I could spot what similarities the computer was finding. I discovered that my hubby has Kiefer Sutherland's nose. I have no idea what poor Kiefer is currently using to breathe. (har!) I discovered that when we tease my niece, Amber, by calling her "Buffy", we aren't too far wrong. The computer ranked her resemblance to Sarah Michelle Gellar at a 68% match! And me? Well, first of all I discovered that evidently I'm a total hottie when I'm drunk. And see, that's something I totally did not know. I thought I was red-cheeked, bleary-eyed, splotchy, and silly-looking, but when I had them search for comparisons to the photo below, it assured me that I'm a 71% match to Uma Thurman. Wow. All righty then. Since I, being both very optimistic and having poor eyesight, really believe that (REALLY!...would I lie to you??) I obviously need to get drunk more than my usual twice a year or so. Margaritas anyone? On the other hand, when I'm stone-cold-sober and have a brand new haircut, I discover that the computer sees a 64% resemblance to Renee Zellweger. I denied it at first. I said No Way, UnhUNH! I'm not a fan of Ms. Z's look. She has squinty eyes and a weird mouth and chipmunk cheeks. And ok, I own up to the chipmunk cheek thing, but I do NOT have squinty eyes and a weird mouth, at least not Zellweger-weird. Do I? DO I??? Oh dear. It appears that I do. Excuse me while I go get drunk. All smart-assedness aside (well, ok, not all, but most smart-assednes aside), what I actually found the most interesting was seeing not who showed up as the most "matchy" on each individual photo, but seeing who showed up repeatedly for photo after photo after photo, even if they weren't the top match. Those are the ones where I figure there may really be some small similarity of bone structure or something. Some of the celebrities who showed up repeatedly for me, with anywhere from a 50% to 71% match each time, included:

• well...Uma! (I have to admit she showed up not just on the top spot that one time, but several other times, although I don't see it at ALL, not even a tiny little bit)
• Elisha Cuthbert
• Condoleezza Rice
• Angelina Jolie
• Jennifer Aniston
• Michelle Pfeiffer
• Toni Morrison
• Beyonce Knowles
• Kate Winslet
• Charlize Theron

With some of the people on that list I can pick out a feature or two here and there - nose, cheekbones, eyebrows, jawline - and see why the computer matched them to me a few times. With others, I have NO freakin' idea what it's seeing that I don't. I'd mentioned Marie Trintignant in the first line. She's someone I'd never heard of before this. I guess I need to watch more French films. She only showed up as a result for one pic, but the computer was calling it a 70% match - my second highest of the day. I'm thinking jawline (sort of), cheekbones, and maybe nose. Another thing I found interesting is that there have been a few celebrities that people have told me I remind them of in recent years and almost none of them showed up in my computer-generated results. Hhhhmmm.... Since I bet someone will ask, I've been told at various times that I reminded people in some small way of Marcia Cross, Katherine Heigl, and Drew Barrymore. Of those three, only Drew showed up on the 'puter searches - twice, both times at around a 45% match. Ironically, of all the people mentioned on this page, Drew is the one I think I most resemble, although I'm not much more thrilled with that than with the Renee Z thing. Heh. If any of you decide to play, I hope you'll tell me so in comments. I'd love to hear your results!