As he walked past the hoarding, Jamie Muscato noticed a familiar face on a poster advertising the 2001 census - his own.
When photographers from the census came to his school looking for models to appear in the advertising posters, Jamie, 11, did not expect to be picked because he was covered in mud after playing football.
But his smile won them over and Jamie's face has since been plastered all over the country.
Jamie, a pupil at St John the Baptist School in Whitehawk Hill Road, Brighton, enjoys the limelight.
He said: "I love the buzz of doing things like this. It's hard to explain but I like it when people come up to me and say, 'Is that you in that poster?'."
Three years ago Jamie starred in the pantomime Peter Pan at the Pavilion Theatre in Worthing and decided the showbiz lifestyle was for him.
He made it to the final three in auditions for a part in the Harry Potter movie and starred in a comedy drama on CITV called My Parents Are Aliens. He was also the regional winner of the Britain's Funniest Kid contest in 1999.
Jamie can be seen in Gel at the Pavilion Theatre in Brighton this month.
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