Sometimes — even if you're a square-jawed, charismatic, and successful, rich, white man — life can offer challenges. Take Kyle Chandler and Jon Hamm, for instance. Sure, their runs on Friday Night Lights and Mad Men, respectively, have made them two of the last decade’s most rightfully beloved TV leading men. But would small-screen success translate into major movie glory? Or would they flame out, like so many David Carusos before them? Turned out, uh, it was the first one.
Some stars are happy to show their faces in commercials, lending their celebrity to endorse the products they truly believe in, as Tina Fey is doing with that Garnier Nutrisse hair dye, or Matthew Broderick did with his Super Bowl riff on Ferris Bueller for Honda. Others try to keep a lid on their shilling by doing it only overseas. A third class is prepared to do TV ads — if all you hear is a disembodied voice. But if a celebrity's not willing to show her face in support of a brand, can we REALLY believe it has her full endorsement? Here we've collected a list of stars who've provided voice-overs in commercials, considered what their work tells us about the products they've promoted — and, for good measure, ranked them according to how likely they are actually to make use of them, from most likely to least likely.
Tom Hanks might star in an adaptation of Erik Larson’s nonfiction book In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, which has just been optioned by Universal and Hanks’ Playtone production company. The book revolves around William Dodd, the United States’ ambassador to Berlin in 1933, his socialite daughter Martha, and the family’s transition from naiveté to “awareness of the mounting brutality around them.” When reached for comment on the project, Tom Hanks made a bug-eyed face before asking, “holy crap, did I just sign up for another World War II movie?” Grade: A- [HR]
You know an awards show is in trouble when Rob Lowe appears and you find yourself wishing he brought Snow White with him. Last night’s 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards were, by turns, mawkish, desperate, cringe-inducing, and dull — and that was before the gang from Entourage heroically reunited after an absence of only one week. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment things tipped into catastrophe during Fox’s broadcast. Was it the decision to emulate the worst of the Oscars via cheesy, context-free montages reminding us just what, exactly, comedy is? (Note to producers: It’s not Nurse Jackie.) Or was it the subdivision of the show by category, thus guaranteeing a final third devoted to America’s enduring love affair with miniseries about British class discomfort? Perhaps it was the audibly flop-sweating voice-over announcer whose job it was to drop joke bombs like “his favorite Marx brother is Richard” while winners approached the podium, thus treating the show’s only unscripted moments like the allies treated Dresden? Or maybe it was an “In Memorium” segment so classless and tone-deaf it managed to forever ruin both “In Memorium” segments and death? Or was it the sad, craven sight of random television B+-listers shackled together in sock-hop burlesque and forced to perform a cappella intros as the Emmytones? You know what? Yep. It was that.
