What does "who is is it" mean? Why the duplicate "is"?

@Moodswings [youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INilAY6aJTc]

@Moodswings Mr. Zimmermann plays many roles.

@Moodswings I think he was very good at playing the peace-nik.

@Moodswings I think there is no such thing as "authenticity" on stage. The difference is, he did his role-playing in a deliberate and intentional way.
As a result, his playing the hippie was very convincing.

@Moodswings "So who and what is he really?
— He's Robert Allen Zimmerman from Duluth, Minnesota. He made role-playing an art form, and he invented the fictional character "Bob Dylan" as an embodiment of his roles. His playing the Christian wasn't really good though.
Yes, he's been a role model for millions of followers, but I don't know whether you can call his activities "pretending". Does an actor who plays Hamlet pretend he [b][u]is[/u][/b] Hamlet?

@Moodswings the answer my friend, is blowing in the wind....

@Moodswings Bob Dylan [b][u]is[/u][/b] a fictional character (a chameleon), as opposed to Robert Z., who is a real person.
The difference between Zimmermann and a normal actor is that there is usually a line between the actor and the character he's playing. This is not the case here.

I'd like to say I admire him. And Dylan's (!) poetry is wonderful. (I would assume that Zimmermann has always been a boring old fart.)

@Moodswings just like a woman..

@Moodswings I only have this one album, where he plays the angry young man (study his face, he's excellent at it!):
[center][image deleted][/center]
It's [u]extremely credible [/u]and convincing. In a sense, that's pretty scary.

@Moodswings Have you ever heard anything more convincing and authentic?