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Culture Stage

Commercial viability

One group of people who aren’t worried about selling out and going commercial are local actors. A national TV spot can give them the kind of exposure and recognition that’s hard to generate with a play, movie-of-the-week or guest spot in a TV series.

“I think at one point I had three commercials running at the same time,” says Naomi Snieckus, a Second City alumna and one of the most recognizable commercial actors around. She’s often cast as the smart young wife with the dumb husband for corps like Rogers, BMO and Canadian Tire.

Her favourite anecdote about being recognized concerns walking her dog near a guy who’d passed out on a park bench.

“He said, ‘Hey, I just puked and I don’t want the dog to eat it,’ and then he looked at me and said, ‘Hey, aren’t you in that commercial?’

“Yup, that’s my target market right there.”

Like Snieckus, Jason DeRosse is a Second City vet – he’s still in the touring company and involved in sketch and improv troupes like Mantown and PB and J.

After he became a recurring character in a series of Diet Pepsi ads about a guy unsuccessfully trying to reclaim his youth, DeRosse says strangers would sometimes address him as “Pepsi guy.”

Jason DeRosse pops a Diet Pepsi.

“I don’t know if there’s a right way to respond to that,” he laughs. “‘Thanks’?”

Both Snieckus and DeRosse are comedy-trained so tend to get cast in funny spots. DeRosse’s Whiskas cat food ad – in which he played a guy who thinks he’s a feline – is a terrific example of his physical work. Snieckus says most of her ads have a comic arc, much like a good sketch.

“I don’t tend to be the serious spokesperson, the one who holds up a bottle of Pepto Bismol,” she says.

One thing that’s no laughing matter is the kind of money involved.

“Commercials allow me not to do typical actor jobs in restaurants or telemarketing,” says DeRosse. “Now I can produce shows, take workshops.”

Snieckus says everything – including commercials and corporate gigs – is a means to an end.

Naomi Snieckus and Reid Janisse reap rewards for Rogers.

“Commercials allow me to help run a theatre company that isn’t making a big profit – for now,” she says, referring to improv theatre troupe National Theatre of the World, which she runs with partner Matt Baram and Ron Pederson. Later this month, the NTOTW launches a week-long run of improv at Theatre Passe Muraille inspired by two original opening pages by noted playwrights like Daniel MacIvor, Brad Fraser and Judith Thompson.

Still, even the most successful commercial actors won’t take everything that comes along.

Stephanie Belding, a dramatic stage, TV and film actor, says she’s learned how being associated with a product can affect your image. She’s often cast as the modern woman on the go one of her high-profile spots features her briskly walking and talking about using ING Direct.

“There are tons of products and companies I don’t use in my life, and I opt out of a lot of commercial auditions as a result of that,” she says.

Snieckus says there’s a limit, too.

“I wouldn’t do a commercial to sell guns, for instance,” she says. “Even if it were funny.”

glenns@nowtoronto.com

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