Comedian Tom Sainsbury uses a faceswap app to create a video of his portrayal of Tauranga MP Simon Bridges, showcasing the politician's love for the city with a special poem.
Tauranga MP Simon Bridges has confessed a comedian's portrayal of him online had him laughing out loud.
The video was created by comedian and self-confessed "snap-chat dude" Tom Sainsbury, already well known in New Zealand for his impersonations of politicians and characters.
In the latest video, loaded on Facebook onWednesday, Mr Sainsbury portrays Mr Bridges' and his love for Tauranga with an acrostic "down poem". Mr Sainsbury used online app Snapchat to superimpose Mr Bridges' face on to his, speaking about how great he believes Tauranga is, including its high proportion of retirement homes.
Mr Bridges said the video was far from flattering but he didn't mind.
"When I first saw it I was 'what the ... is this'? Then I got into it and laughed. He does it so well," Mr Bridges said.
"It saddens me to say I certainly saw a likeness in the portrayal of me and the reality is, he's got the voice down-pat. It's pretty good."
Mr Bridges said he had been familiar with Mr Sainsbury's work for a while.
"Paula Bennett drew them to me a while back because there's a few of her. There's also at least another one of me and some of Judith Collins and the Prime Minister."
Mr Bridges said Mr Sainsbury had done well to nail certain mannerisms and personality traits such as his pride for Tauranga and Ms Bennett's love of shopping.
"It's almost like he knows us very personally," Mr Bridges said.
Mr Sainsbury said Ms Bennett was one of his favourite people to impersonate and Mr Bridges' face and voice were easy to replicate.
"The voice came fairly easily to me. It's a pretty strong Kiwi accent, and I feel I have the tendency towards a strong Kiwi accent as well," he said.
Mr Sainsbury is based in Auckland and started the impersonations a couple of years ago with John Key video but couldn't get the face quite right, he said. Then Snapchat created an app to allow face swap and Mr Sainsbury's videos grew in popularity. So much so, he has his own dedicated Facebook page.
"It's been positive. I haven't had any backlash yet. I guess people are happy to laugh at themselves," he said.
"I take the mickey out of people but I do it out of love. I'm not trying to be malicious but I'm aware that sometimes you can be unintentionally offensive. I approach it with love. I respect them. I might not agree with their policies necessarily but I still respect them doing what they do in such a high-demand job."
An earlier video of Mr Sainsbury's take on Mr Bridges is below.
