Celebrities doing voice over on commercials

Was that Susan Sarandon’s voice on the Stouffers ad??? Wow. And I’m thinking that has to be George Clooney for Budweiser or some other beer. Of course, Julia Roberts did the AOL ads, probably needed some money while she was pregnant.
The voice of Mercedes Benz of So. California has to be Eric McCormack of Will and Grace fame. Jeff Goldblume has a few ads out, his voice makes me smile cuz he’s cute and goofy. AIG is Stockard Channing, I believe.

What happened to “never sell out”? Guess the sell out price has gone up. The one I’m most surprised about is Susan Sarandon. What’s next, Meryl Streep as the Energizer bunny???

I think Queen Latifah does the Pizza Hut ad’s, sounds like her at least.

A dollar is a dollar. And some of them are making a huge amount of money for a few hours of work.

I saw an interview with Jim Palmer (many years ago) when he was doing the underware commercials. And they asked him why, and was he embarrassed, etc. He was very straight forward and said he didn’t think anthing was wrong with it, and it paid for all his kids college education. And it was fun.

I don’t buy into this “sell out” stuff. As the old cliche goes, they don’t call it “show art.”

I say more power to them.

Richard Dreyfuss has been the Honda voice-over guy for a while.

I also hear Donald Sutherland all over the place - Lexus, for one.

Michael Douglas did some Infinity ads.

I think Dean Cain is also doing a car commercial. I saw it the other day on tv (don’t know which car company), but I’m pretty sure the voice is that of Dean Cain.

I’m not actually putting them down, per se. Just very surprised that a social activist like Susan Sarandon would do an ad for meatloaf. Michael Douglas, Julia Roberts, RIchard Dreyfuss, etc. are Oscar winners, and still doing films, AFAIK. I hope there’s some money being donated to charities. Just how much money do you need to live comfortably? Oops, that’s a whole 'nuther thread.

Have you noticed that the VO for Lowe’s Hardware is Gene Hackman?

Well the ad agencies or the companies doing the ads approach the stars.

Like Crusty the Clown once said.

“They pulled up to my house with a dump truck full of money! What was I supposed to do?”
Plus, I think many stars feel that doing voice ‘only’ is a little classier than actually appearing in the commercial.

And believe it or not, you do need a trained voice to do that work. Not anyone can do that. Heck those people who rattle off all the side effects and the names of the meds are really skilled.

They are actors. Why is it selling out to do a job that actors are paid to do?

The part I don’t get (I’ve said this before on some other “actors’ voiceover” threads) is why they don’t hire an impressionist to do Donald Sutherland or Gene Hackman or whoever. The name actor isn’t credited anyway, and the recognition would be identical (Could you tell the difference between Donald Sutherland and a really good D.S. impressionist?) and it would be so much cheaper.

I’ve been told that the real actor would sue, but I don’t get that. Does Donald Sutherland own his voice? How so? If some other actor is capable of producing the same timbre and accent, could Sutherland sue him?

They don’t use impressionist for the simple reason that they’d get sued for “passing off” and damage of professional reputation. I’m sure I also heard a story somewhere of impressionists doing advert voice overs, but the real person getting paid. Something about the person being no good at it, or it being cheaper for all concerned to have an impersonator spend a day in the studio, or because an impersonator concentrates on what makes the person sound unique, so they actually sound more like the public’s expections.

But the reason that many actors do voice overs, in preference to actual appearances in adverts, is because many people simply don’t recognise them by voice alone. They recognise the voice as famous, they get the associations with it, but they just can’t pin down a face to go along with it. It’s the best of both worlds for the advertiser and the actor. You get the famous reputation and association for the product, but without forever tying the two together. The actor isn’t “selling out” and the advertiser can swap in someone cheaper for later promotions and few will even notice.

Advertisers realise this and know they are paying more for the associated ‘feel’ than the actor. Want the viewer to think it’s a fun product? Get a famous comedy actor. The viewer’s smiling just on hearing the voice, and they don’t even know why!

Yes, he could, under a principle called the right of publicity. Here’s an interesting case.

When a voice is recognizable as the celebrity’s, the commercial is essentially an endorsement by the celebrity. If an impressionist is used, the real celebrity can complain that the advertiser is unfairly enriching itself by using the celebrity’s fame and reputation.

Advertisers believe that even when the celebrity’s identity is not explicitly revealed and may not be consciously recognized by most viewers, the familiarity of the voice will attract more attention and incline the viewers more favorably to the product than an anonymous voice.

As to why the celebrity would do it, think about it: he/she receives a large sum (generally in the six-figure range for top talent like Hackman or Dreyfuss, I believe) for about half a day’s work in a recording studio. Even if you were a multi-millionaire, would you turn down half a million bucks for three or four hours of reading copy?

Slight hijack: One of the biggest paydays for any Hollywood star, in terms of amount of work for money earned, was the performance of Bruce Willis as the voice of the kid in Guess Who’s Talking. It was a small budget ($7.5 million) film, and Willis was a big star, still hot from Moonlighting and the first Die Hard film (for which he earned $5 million). He agreed to do the voice in return for a percentage of the gross.

The film was far more popular than anyone expected, eventually grossing nearly $300 million. Bruce’s take was about **$10 million, for sitting in a recording studio for three or four days. **

Look Who’s Talking, not Guess. :smack:

Even A-list mega-stars like Brad Pitt, Schwarzenegger, Jodie Foster, Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Connelly have actually appeared in TV ads overseas (mostly Japan).

Having enormously deep pockets Microsoft has always had big TV spots. They’ve used various songs like David Bowie’s Heroes, Madonna’s Ray of Light and, famously, paid $13 million to use The Rolling Stones’ Start Me Up for the launch of Windows 95 (I read they wanted REM’s Its the End of the World but couldn’t get it).