Meet the Hollywood body doubles who even fool the stars

When Jamie Foxx took ill while filming “Back in Action” in April, cameras continued rolling with body doubles filling in.

But it’s not only when medical disaster strikes that doubles rack up minutes on screen.

For stars, it’s a matter of using doubles to manage time wisely. “It can take hours to get a minute of footage,” Marilee Lessley, who’s doubled for Reese Witherspoon, told The Post. “It can be Reese’s character walking down the street or being photographed from behind.”

That’s when the doppelgängers step in to free up stars for costume fittings or script changes or hours off.

Here is what it’s like to be a celebrity lookalike who leaves us seeing double.

I’M LEGALLY REESE

Marilee Lessley wanted to experience a film set.

So, when Reese Witherspoon came to shoot “Legally Blond II: Red, White & Blonde” in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2002, she signed on as an extra. 

Just one problem. “Everyone thought I was Reese,” Lessley, now 42, who had been working in nursing, recalled to The Post. “I was told, ‘You can’t be an extra. We can only have one Reese.’”

But Lessley donned a hat, stood in the back of a crowd and enjoyed the experience.

Producers took her information.

They figured that she might come in handy.

Two years later, in 2004, Lessley was summoned to double for Witherspoon in “Just Like Heaven.”

The women hit it off. 

“Reese said we should run around, looking like each other, just for fun,” said Lessley. “They did my hair and it was crazy how alike we looked.”

Captured from behind at a distance, Lessley chased down a pregnancy test in “Four Christmases,” rode a pachyderm in “Water for Elephants” and got kissed by Mark Ruffalo while comatose in “Just Like Heaven.” 

Fans are not alone in believing Lessley was Reese.

During “Four Christmases,” Lessley mistook Tim McGraw for a crew member.

“He thought I was Reese and couldn’t understand why Reese did not recognize him,” said Lessley, who last doubled on the second season of “Big Little Lies” and owns Marilee Motivates, a health and wellness business. 

“Another time a gentleman followed me for three blocks. He wanted Reese to sign his guitar. I told him I wasn’t her. He would not believe me. Finally, I said, ‘I will sign your guitar. But with my real name.’ He replied, ‘That’s okay. I’ll know you signed it, Reese.’”

LENA’S BAWDY DOUBLE

If you doubled for Lena Dunham on “Girls,” you would endure no shortage of sexual poses. 

Portraying Hannah Horvath for lighting setups, Cara Guglielmino, now 33, told The Post, “I stood in all these sexual positions. Luckily, the guy standing in for Adam [Driver] was gay and we became friends. Sometimes I had my head in a guy’s lap for 30 minutes.”

Back in 2012, Guglielmino did extra work while pursuing a dance career.

A casting agent asked if she would be up for body doubling.

“They were elusive with information,” said Guglielmino. “Then l got to the set and realized it was for ‘Girls.’”

Guglielmino hopped onto the second season and rode the series out until its final episode in 2017.

“There was a lot of pride attached to the job,” she said. “We went to wrap parties and premieres. After I broke up with my boyfriend and was left with no furniture, Lena had a West Elm sofa [from her dressing room], delivered to my home.”

And Guglielmino landed on-camera moments as Hannah Horvath. “One time [Hannah] was in the car with her mom and dad,” Guglielmino recalled.

“I sat in back as Hannah. Peter Scolari [the late actor who played Hannah’s dad] was up front and a stunt driver was behind the wheel as her mom.”

Dunham was polite but too busy for friendly interaction and Guglielmino did not get the star-treatment. Between shots, she said, “we were not allowed to sit in unoccupied chairs. I’d wind up next to sandbags on dollies. We would get [physically] maneuvered around for lighting setups. A PA once yelled at me for going to the restroom.”

These days, Guglielmino is out of the showbiz fringes and obtaining a doctorate in psychology. She lives in Portland, Oregon, and sometimes misses doubling for Dunham.

“There was a certain energy that was life giving,” she said. “But I am 33 and not into standing around a set and being moved like a piece of furniture.”

DOUBLING BUT DISTANT

Virgil Carter quickly recognized that there is a big difference between being Eddie Murphy and looking like Eddie Murphy.

He flew from Oakland to Los Angeles, hired to double for Murphy on 1998’s “Dr. Doolittle.” Off the plane, Carter wanted to contact the production company.

“I went to use an airport pay-phone and everybody was saying, ‘That’s Eddie!’” he told The Post. “A manager from Southwest Airlines offered to let me use the phone behind his counter. Before I finished dialing, he asked if I was Eddie Murphy. I did not lie. He told me I cannot use the phone. That woke me up to LA. Once he realized who I was, he wanted nothing to do with me.”

Carter, who fell into the gig after applying to double on “Beverly Hills Cop III,” has worked on a total of 16 movies with Murphy, beginning with “Metro” in 1997. Most recently: “Coming to America II.”

The series of jobs took him from living with his mom and having no car to occupying a pad in Hollywood and having his own on-set trailer. 

But don’t expect him to pal around with Murphy. “I can’t tell you what Eddie is like to hang out with,” said Carter, 59. “I am not all in his face. I keep things professional. I don’t want to wind up fired for something that happens off the job.”

When cameras roll, Carter is indispensable.

He stood in for Murphy alongside Robert De Niro and even provided a close-up for “Norbert” when a dog licked the face of Murphy’s title character. “I have a birthmark on my right cheekbone,” said Carter. “That’s the only way you can tell the difference between me and Eddie.”

The ultimate compliment came while shooting “Bofinger.” Carter was doubling for Murphy alongside co-star Steve Martin. It left the possibly overworked Martin to wonder aloud, “Where’s my Virgil?”

TÉA FOR TWO

Sara DeRosa is a veteran stand-in and body double.

Over 17 years, she’s worked with Blake Lively on “Gossip Girl,” Sarah Jessica Parker on “And Just Like That” and Emma Stone in “The Amazing Spiderman II.” 

“I got to be her in the longshots, saving the day in a control tower,” said DeRosa.

But her time with Téa Leoni, for “Madam Secretary,” from 2014 until 2019, doubled the doubling requirements. 

“We were on location, Téa was getting into her car and she asked me where I live,” DeRosa, 38, told The Post. “We lived in the same Manhattan neighborhood and she offered me a ride home.

“In the car, Téa  asked if I would run lines with her. Then she asked if we could make it a regular thing. I rode in with her and rode home with her. We ran lines and talked about our lives. That’s unusual.”

Pointing out that she usually starts as a stand-in (generally being used to get lighting in shape), DeRosa goes the extra mile by tipping off actors on impending action changes — like maybe that a different hand should be used to pick up a pencil.

And doubling is her goal: “It gives you more job-security and a little more money.”

Working on the Netflix show, “Manifest,” DeRosa doubled for Melissa Roxburgh, who plays NYPD officer Michaela Stone, when the actress was home sick.

“They got close ups of her face and I ran through snow and ice as Michaela,” DeRosa remembered. “I embodied her character’s running style and emotions as I stopped at the grave of a friend who passed away. I was happy to help the production and Melissa thanked me.”

Pointing out that flexibility and gameness are key to the job, DeRosa said, “There’s always a wig and a costume ready for the body-double.”