MTN DEW Zero Sugar is out to prove that some things can be as good as the original and has brought in two new offseason residents at The Overlook Hotel to do it: Award-winning actors, Bryan Cranston and Tracee Ellis Ross.
The two star in the PepsiCo brand’s 30-second Super Bowl LIV spot, a nostalgic nod to the “The Shining” that adds a new twist on a classic introduction.
Ironically, although he downplays it a bit, Bryan Cranston does a pretty decent Jack Nicholson impersonation. When Ad Meter spoke to the actor about his role in the Super Bowl spot, Nicholson’s uniquely iconic voice and persona were mentioned, followed by a brief pause—and then ,it happened. “You can’t help but talk like him,” he smoothly exclaimed in classic Nicholson-ese.
The interesting thing, however, was the eventual answer to the question was no. It was something that he and the director Tom Kuntz—who won an Emmy for Commercial of the Year in 2010—both agreed would be a wise sidestep. “I told Tom that I didn’t want to do an impersonation of (Jack),” Cranston candidly recalled. “And he said, ‘Oh no. We don’t want you to do that either.'”
The idea instead would be to recreate the infamous “Here’s Johnny!” scene— including a set design that even used a few props from the original set to make everything as realistic as possible—and rely upon the actor’s talents to pull off a difficult challenge: make the product the star while not going overboard, or over time.
That left the possibility of things falling flat, but it also avoided any flashy takes that would overshadow the buildup. And it was that type of pre-production coordination between actor, director, and everyone involved, that allowed the story to be told authentically…and in 30 seconds.
The time crunch, as the Breaking Bad star humorously noted, certainly would have been a nightmare for the film’s original director Stanley Kubrick (whom he studied and admired). But it was something Kuntz was able to manage, and Cranston benefited from it.
“I leaned on Tom a lot,” he explained, “to keep me focused on the tempo and the timing of it, and how sometimes compressed that storytelling is—different from doing film or television, or even the stage.”
How the efforts are received on the biggest stage—Super Bowl Sunday—will ultimately reveal how much of a shining moment all of it is.
Check out the EXCLUSIVE behind-the-scenes photos with Bryan Cranston and Tracee Ellis Ross:
