When people recognize Justin Long as the affable Mac from Apple's successful Mac-PC ad campaign, it's in a fairly matter-of-fact fashion. "People who point me out as the Mac guy are very [nonchalant about] it," notes the actor, chuckling. "They say it very casually. They're like, 'Oh, there's a tree, there's a park bench, there's the Mac guy.' They just say it as if it were a statement of fact — a very uninteresting statement of fact."
Perhaps that's a testament to how instantly likable Long is in the spots. Folks who approach him on the street — some of whom also cheerily inform the actor that he convinced them to purchase a Mac — feel as if they know him already.
As the hipster computer in the company's "Get a Mac" commercials, Long spars entertainingly with stodgy, inefficient PC, played by The Daily Show's John Hodgman. The ads, which launched last year, have proved immensely popular, spawning similar campaigns in the U.K. and Japan and earning Long mainstream recognition. They also led to a high-profile movie gig, playing sidekick to Bruce Willis in this summer's would-be blockbuster Live Free or Die Hard, the fourth installment in the Die Hard franchise.
"Bruce had final casting say, and he had seen me in Dodgeball, and The Break-Up had just come out, and he's a fan of those comedies, but it wasn't until the Fox people showed him a bunch of the Apple commercials that I think he decided I would be right for the part," says Long, who has also appeared in the TV series Ed and such cult-favorite films as Galaxy Quest and Accepted. "Those commercials helped me get the biggest movie job of my career, which is incredible."
As any actor knows, one of the keys to success in this business is visibility, and nabbing a plum role in a well-received commercial campaign puts you in front of people the way few things can. "It's like doing a post card on TV," says Wendy Braun, who starred in a series of popular Mervyns store ads from 1999 through 2001. "[People] are like, 'Oh, yeah, her.' "
There are also potential pitfalls in being a recognizable TV pitchperson: The high visibility means actors must be wary of being pigeonholed or typecast. Long says he thinks Apple is savvy enough to pull the plug before the "Get a Mac" spots grow stale. "I feel like, once they've run their course, once it's too much and the ubiquity of them becomes really annoying, the company is smart enough to know when that is," he says. "You don't want to be pigeonholed and trapped as the Mac guy forever, and I'd be lying if I said [that] wasn't a concern. I kind of play it day to day. I've now signed up for another year, so I suppose I'll just re-evaluate it when the time runs out on the contract."
For now, though, Long couldn't be happier with the gig and says he especially loves working with Hodgman and director Phil Morrison (who helmed the 2005 indie Junebug). "I love the format," Long says. "It turned out to be very loose, and they let us kind of ad-lib and keep it very casual. It's less like doing a commercial, for me, than it is just doing little scenes. And my job, truthfully, is a lot easier than John's; I just kind of have to react. The big choice I end up making is, like, when to take my hands out of my pockets."
Nabbing the Part
As with most acting gigs, there's no tried-and-true formula that's guaranteed to land you a high-profile commercial role. Ali Landry, for instance, literally turned cartwheels to nab the part of the acrobatic Doritos Girl in a popular spot that debuted during the 1998 Super Bowl. "This [was] probably my second audition ever, and I get there, and there are probably 25, 30 gorgeous girls waiting," she recalls. "I'm thinking, 'What in the world am I doing here?' I went in, and I read the storyboard, and they said you had to do some flips or something. They didn't say the whole concept of the commercial, but they gave you an idea of what you had to do when you went in the room. So I'm thinking, 'I've been in dancing my whole life and in gymnastics. I could probably do some pretty cool tricks in a small space.' " Landry landed a few stunts — including a cartwheel that ends in a split — and the job. The first commercial was so popular, it led to a series of spots and a three-year gig as Doritos spokeswoman.
Though no gymnastics was involved, Clay Jackson had to go through several rounds of auditions to land his current gig as the Maytag Repairman. Jackson is featured in the brand's newest ads, in which the Repairman gets called in to fix unreliable non-Maytag appliances. "My first audition was at Carolines comedy club in Times Square," he recalls. "You walk in, and they're like, 'Why do you think you'd be the great next Repairman?' Or, 'Pretend that stool next to you is a Maytag appliance and have a conversation with it.' The second round was also improv, but more off-the-wall questions, like, 'Hey, Mr. Repairman, I hear that you have a new reality show on TV; tell me all about it.' Or, 'I'm sure you hang out with other spokespeople; who are your other friends?'"
The third round of auditions took place in a boardroom and was more like a standard job interview. "The first thing they said was, 'We've seen that you can play a character; now we want to see if you have character,' " Jackson recalls. "That was probably my favorite part of the audition process, because it was a simple job interview: What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Do you have any questions for us?" Jackson beat out 1,500 contenders to land the job.
Long is still stunned that the Apple gig came to him as a simple offer. "My agent called out of the blue and said that they'd gotten a call from the Mac people and they wanted me to do it," he says. "It was amazing. My mom was a commercial actress while I was growing up, and we'd run around New York every day with her, one audition after another, and that's what I started doing when I first started out [as an actor] in New York. To just get a call out of the blue, it was really like a godsend. It was just so surreal to get a straight offer. But apparently [Apple CEO] Steve Jobs had seen me in some movie, and from what I understand, I reminded him of a younger version of himself. So I guess I have to thank my parents for the genes."
In Character
So what should you expect once you sign on for a recurring commercial gig? In some cases, these actors also make appearances around the country, at the company's corporate headquarters, or at special events to promote the product. As the Maytag Repairman, Jackson is required to know as much about the product as possible. "It's my responsibility to know what's going on with the appliances," he says. "That's something I'm always working on, getting more and more product knowledge."
What about perks? Braun recalls getting free shopping sprees at Mervyns. But don't expect an automatic hookup with the product you're endorsing. "People would always [say to] me, 'I'm sure you have a lifetime supply of Doritos,'" says Landry, laughing. "I was like, 'To be honest, they never gave me one bag.' "
And there may be restrictions: If you're a representative for one company, you often are not allowed to audition for direct competitors. Chad Brokaw, who appears in a series of ads for the wireless provider Alltel, notes that he's not permitted to do spots for other wireless companies. "That would be kind of bizarre [if] all of a sudden I'm showing up on a Verizon commercial," he says, chuckling. "But [it's] just like any commercial: If you do a Pepsi commercial, you can't do Coke."
Occasionally your on-camera "character" may take on a life of its own: Brokaw's friendly Alltel pitchman, also named Chad, has his own MySpace page. "It's a little strange, because I think a lot of people assume that the Chad that I play in the Alltel spots is me," he says. "It's like a caricature of a really nice, friendly me. I'm playing a part, and the character's name is Chad. But as long as I can separate that, I'm good."
Opening Doors
Obviously, there are myriad advantages to nabbing this type of role. Landry's income from the Doritos commercials, for instance, meant she didn't have to work a second job. "I just kind of focused on acting and going to classes," she says.
Being part of those commercials also opened doors for her in Hollywood. "Because [the commercials] had so much exposure, I was able to get meetings with pretty much everybody in this town. And I know I was hired for guest appearances on tons of television shows — I didn't even have to audition — because of the commercial," says the actor, who has been featured on such series as Felicity, Popular, and Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place.
Brokaw has also been able to get in front of more casting directors since his Alltel spots began running last year. "Theatrically, it's gotten me into doors, and I've definitely felt that over the pilot season," he says. "There were a lot of great places I was able to get into that I wasn't the year before."
Sometimes, a commercial that ingratiates itself into the public consciousness can help you be seen in a different light as an actor. "One change I have noticed is I'm being considered for more Everyman-type parts now, whereas before, it was usually more character stuff — which I love, which I kind of miss," Long says. "Now it's more if they need a young Ben Stiller or, like, the hapless kind of leading-man, hipster-nerdy guy — I guess because in the [Apple] commercial I'm a bit more normal; there's nothing all that outrageous about what I do. So I've seen a lot more jobs or auditions come up like that."
And because commercials offer such high visibility for an actor, you never know who might be watching. Braun, who says the Mervyns campaign led to a lot of auditions for TV guest spots, remembers discovering one unlikely fan. "I was working on NYPD Blue, and I remember being in this scene with Dennis Franz, and I storm out of the room, and he looks at his partner and goes, 'I wonder if she can get us any clothes from Mervyns,' " she recalls, laughing. "I was like, 'No way!' He had not said anything to me at all until that take, and the whole place cracked up. Dennis Franz knew I was the Mervyns girl."
New Channels
There's yet another side to being part of a popular commercial campaign: The high visibility means there's always the possibility of being overexposed, or worse, typecast. Matt Cede単o, who stars in a series of commercials as the passionate "Master of the El Pollo Loco Flame," notes that he's always trying to gauge the effect of the spots on his career. "I keep trying to take the temperature," he says. "[The campaign is] in the third year now, and everybody fears being typecast or labeled. I just had an audition today, and we discussed it in the audition room, and they asked me the same question: 'Have you found you're being pigeonholed at all?' I honestly couldn't answer. I don't know. If I am, people aren't telling me, and those decisions are just being made behind closed doors. It's a tough thing to determine."
Landry says it's been a bit of a struggle to shake the sultry Doritos Girl image. "I think those commercials definitely portrayed me in a very sexy light, and they were [directed] towards men, and that's not who I am at all," she says. "I'm really a girl's girl. For me, that whole concept was very foreign, and that so many people perceived me in that way was definitely an obstacle. [People] really wanted to cast me in those sort of roles."
The actor has dealt with this challenge by turning down various parts, "driving her agents and managers crazy," and pursuing work she's passionate about. She fought to do her latest role: playing a tortured mother in the upcoming film Bella. "My husband [Alejandro Gomez Monteverde] wrote and directed the project, but he has several partners, and they were thinking of, like, Marisa Tomei, who's done those kind of roles before," she explains. "So I had to put myself on tape and get signed off by everybody else. It was the hardest but most rewarding role that I've ever done. So it's just [about] making a conscious choice, and that's what I've been trying to do."
So how can actors ensure their careers move forward, beyond commercial fame? Braun recommends having clear goals for your career and discussing strategy with your representation. "For me, it was marketing: making a post card, always saying what I was doing that had nothing to do with the commercial," she says. "I was always marketing myself doing something other than just [commercials]. That wasn't the only thing I had going on. I was doing standup comedy. I was doing plays and independent films, and I was always doing a mailing. So it was like, 'Oh, it's that girl from the commercial. Oh, she's doing this, that, and the other thing.'"
Braun also decided to step away from commercials, after her Mervyns gig ended, and concentrate on theatrical work. "I grew my hair really long; I totally changed my look," she says. "That was a great chapter, and once it ended, I was like, 'Okay, I need to as an actor go back to, What do I want to do?' " These days, she says, she's getting offers theatrically; she recently nabbed a recurring gig as officious hospital administrator Ms. Sneed on General Hospital and will also be a regular in the series' upcoming spinoff General Hospital: Night Shift.
Another strategy is creating your own work as an actor, which Long is keen to do. The actor is currently writing a project with his college pal Jonathan Togo, a regular on CSI: Miami. "We're creating something for ourselves that we can produce and we can write," Long says. "That's what Vince Vaughn does, that's what Stiller does, that's what Judd Apatow and all those guys are doing. If you have the means to do that, I think that's really smart."
In the end, being proactive is key: Landing a big commercial gig can jump-start a career, but it's up to you to make the most of the opportunity. "The bottom line is, it's a blessing. That's why we're here, to be working as an actor in one facet or another," Cede単o says. "[The El Pollo Loco character] is just a character that I do. It's not all-encompassing of my talent; it's not all that I have to offer. [You have to] try to exercise as much control over the things you do have control over: continue studying and working on your craft." Adds Braun, "[It's about] taking the recognizability and capitalizing on the recognizability — but shifting the focus to what's next. You sort of have to create your 'what's next.' "