I don’t mean to have some kind of power to rewrite it, I just mean whether they can say “nope, I’m out, you can keep your pay”. Or once they are contracted to do a series of commercials, do they have to play out whatever role is given to them?
I was pondering that question when watching this insurance commercial:
Dennis Haysbert has played a number of roles, but most prominent in my mind is as the US president on 24, before Obama (some believe he may have normalized the idea of a black president and thus paved the way for Obama) back when that show was a huge megahit. To be reduced to being recognized solely for those commercials themselves, I would have to think feels pretty demeaning to him.
I think it could have worked in a humorous way if they lampshaded it by putting in a line where he objects “but I was the president!” and people were just like “yeah yeah, but you’re the ‘safer drivers save 40%‘ guy, that’s so cool” and Haysbert looks over at the camera with a slightly exasperated look, like “really?”. If that’s what they were going for, it’s too subtle (and would presumably sail over the heads of GenZ viewers, although maybe they don’t watch commercials).
Michael Caine-[on Jaws: The Revenge (1987)] “I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.”
While it’s Allstate’s money, and Haysbert has undoubtedly signed a contract with them, I’d expect that he does have some leverage in the relationship, given that he’s very recognizable as Allstate’s spokesperson (which the referenced ad obviously alludes to), and they’ve spent years building up that recognition.
If Allstate (or, really, their ad agency) presented him with a script he really disliked, it’s entirely likely that he’d be able to force a change to the script, or just refuse to do that script (and, that leverage may well be part of his contract). It’d be a different situation, obviously, if it were a no-name actor.
And, if Haysbert truly felt demeaned by being an insurance spokesperson, he’d stop doing it. Ongoing work in an ad campaign like that is pretty easy work for an actor, and means a pretty good income for him, while giving him the flexibility to take other roles.
In the movie Tootsie there is a scene where Dustin Hoffman’s character has a hard time getting acting work because he refused to do a scene in a commercial. He was playing a tomato in the commercial.
When I opened the thread, I wasn’t thinking big name star, but ordinary actors. If an actor had a valid objection like “This is immoral/sexist/racist!” it might be good for their reputation. But if they’re just being difficult, it’d hurt it.
My point is, word gets around. The commercial-shooting community is pretty small (thank Og I’m out now). I’m betting there are similar communities for film: Documentary, Indie, Blockbuster*…
*Lots of examples of that…
(Not a lot of Sean Young movies out there. I mean, she was a big name after Blade Runner, but quickly got a rep for being difficult.)
Oh, right: Deep Impact! Really underrated movie, far better than Armageddon which strangely came out the same year. I was initially thinking you might mean that movie in which Freeman plays God: obviously that would be a bit of a stretch.
It’s cool that both DI and 24 were not about an African American becoming president per se. That was just incidental to the story, and they didn’t worry it would distract people even though it had never happened at that point and didn’t look particularly imminent to most political observers. (Have we had a movie or show with a woman president in the same way, tangential to the main plot?)