You're absolutely right Leonid; it's a wonderful anecdote that uses the phrase perfectly. Did you know that Rowan Atkinson is actually an incredibly wealthy man who has a Masters' degree from Oxford University. Wouldn't it have been amazing to have had him as a classmate.

I've heard this phrase on YouTube. There is a short video in which a famous English actor Rowan Atkinson tells a story about a man who half recognises the actor and asks him 'Has anyone ever told you that you're the absolute spitting image of that Mr. Bean?'. Atkinson replies 'Well, actually, I'm the actor who plays Mr. Bean'. After that the man says 'I bet you wish you were'.

Thanks Enrico. It's really interesting that it's also used in Italian, as it's such a weird phrase. Apparently it comes from an ancient idea that a child was formed from the spit of their parents, and that this explained the facial resemblance. It's a great phrase in IELTS whenever a candidate needs to talk about a person they know.

In Italian we also say: "immagine sputata"; I think it comes from dubbing films; the Italians dubber often dubbing English lines in a literal translation.