Consider Roles in Commercials Carefully

Actors often disagree over the direction a career should take. Some feel that an actor should take any job offered, as long as it pays and it’s not pornography, because you never know where a job might lead. Others set rules about the kinds of roles they will accept, especially if the job has a potentially negative impact on their career long-term. 

Stephanie Courtney

TV commercials can be a lucrative specialty area; just ask Stephanie Courtney, who had a series of small parts in film and television before landing the role of “Flo,” the spokesperson for Progressive Insurance.  She’s making a fortune with that gig and she’s everywhere!

But acting in commercials is very different from acting in film. Because they don’t roll credits at the end, commercials present the audience with a kind of reality that blurs the line between actor and role. It isn’t an actress playing a soccer mom there on the screen, it’s a soccer mom telling you that she uses the sponsor’s product and you should too.  

 

If you are widely identified as that commercial person, it can severely limit what other opportunities are offered to you. A casting director might not consider you for a film or TV role if the audience response is likely to be, “Oh look, it’s that woman from the bank commercial!” It destroys the magic. Listen to one viewer's commentary on this House M.D. clip of Courtney posted to YouTube: 

As if that isn’t bad enough, the product can leave an impression about you personally that could make you unemployable. This came up today when I got an email from a casting agency saying they’d like to submit me for a commercial spot. They didn’t say in the email what product or services were being promoted, which raised a red flag. I play in the 45-60 age range, so I asked: Is the product/services age-related? Casting finessed with the broadly generic response: “healthcare.”

I passed on it. An actor friend thought I was nuts. Commercials pay good money, he said!

But I look at it this way: I have no problem playing roles where I’m not at my Sunday best. I do it all the time in film and it’s fun. But in a film I’m clearly an actress playing a role. In a commercial I’m “the person” and if “the person” is promoting health alert systems (“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”), home scooters, death benefit insurance, medication for chronic pain or to prolong their love life, or anything else that screams “infirmity,” that all comes back on me. And the next time a casting agency considers me for a role, that image could affect their decision to even see me.

Not convinced? Remember Jane Powell’s unfortunate decision to promote adult diapers? I groaned.  Sure, they probably paid her a ton of money for that spot.  But now instead of fondly remembering her as the lovely little blond with the big soprano in that classic 1954 musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, I get the image of her in….well, you get the picture.

Consider your commercial roles carefully. It’s money now that could end up costing you much more money later.