International Herald Tribune
04-19-2004
Benjamin Braddock, the endearing slacker portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in ''The Graduate,'' apparently suffered no long-term career damage when he spurned plastics and ran off with the girl he loved. Nowadays, it seems, he drives a luxurious Audi. In a reprise of his 1967 movie role, Hoffman is starring in a television advertisement that promotes the German carmaker's new A6 model.As in the finale of the original film, a frantic Hoffman bursts into a church to rescue the bride from marrying the wrong man. But this time around, she is his daughter, not his lover. As the two speed away in the A6 this time, not a bus Hoffman jokes, ''You're just like your mother.'' There is another big difference between Braddock's two roles: The Audi ad is playing in Germany now, and may be shown in other European countries soon, but it will not appear in the United States. Hoffman's contract with the carmaker forbids it. A spokeswoman for the Frankfurt office of Saatchi & Saatchi, the agency that created the spot, said she was not even allowed to discuss it with English-language journalists. Hoffman is one of a growing number of Hollywood stars popping up around the world in advertisements for just about everything from colas to cars. As depicted in the Sofia Coppola film ''Lost in Translation,'' where a past-his-prime actor played by Bill Murray flogs Suntory whisky in Japan, big-name American actors have been flocking to that country to earn a bit of extra money on the side. A Web site, www.japander.com, documents their sometimes dubious exploits. In Italy, too, big Hollywood names like Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford and George Clooney have appeared in commercials. While Hollywood's A-list can make a bundle of money, and earn a few laughs, for this kind of work, few of them want their fans back home to know. Indeed, contracts are typically structured like Hoffman's deal with Audi, going to great lengths to keep the ads from appearing in the United States, where such exposure might cheapen their images. ''In the U.S., if you do film you don't do TV, and you certainly don't do advertisements,'' said Tony Villani, a professor of film at the American University of Rome. ''In Hollywood, actors have to have a certain iconic status, a distance from the audience. Away from home, it's different.'' While many of the ads done for the Japanese market are as tacky as the ones in which Murray's fictional actor stars, some of the work appearing in Europe is growing increasingly sophisticated. The Audi spot starring Hoffman, for instance, was directed by Michael Bay, the director of the movie ''Pearl Harbor,'' who paid meticulous attention to detail: The church used for the ad is the same one that appeared in ''The Graduate''; the song ''Mrs. Robinson'' plays in the background, although it's a cover by the Lemonheads, not the original Simon & Garfunkel version. Another new ad campaign that is showing only in Europe employs similarly big-name talent, the director Stephen Frears and the actor Robert Downey Jr., in spots for Volvo's new V50 wagon. Shot against a dusty backdrop north of Los Angeles, the spots depict snippets of the protagonist's surreal journey from the fictional towns of Doubt to Confidence. The character, played by Downey, encounters two other versions of himself filmed using a technique like the one employed in the film ''Adaptation'' to let Nicholas Cage play two roles at once. ''It wasn't just about getting the big names,'' said Tim Ellis, global advertising director for Volvo cars. ''As the program developed, we realized we needed an accomplished actor with the technical skills to play the role.'' The TV spots are actually just ''trailers'' for a 12-minute short film that appears on the Internet. The campaign was created for Volvo by the Amsterdam-based ad agency MVBMS Fuel. Neither Audi nor Volvo would discuss the budgets for their new campaigns. The Endeavor Talent Agency, which represents Hoffman, declined to comment, while Alan Nierob of Rogers & Cowan, Downey's publicist, did not return a call seeking comment. But experts say top actors can sometimes earn anywhere from a few hundred thousand dollars to more than $1 million for a few days' work when they appear in spots like these. In addition to Downey and Hoffman, the list of Hollywood actors who have done advertisements in Europe is long. Chevy Chase, for instance, last year appeared in humorous spots for Cola Turka, a would-be competitor to Coca-Cola and Pepsi, that played off his image as the all-American father in the ''National Lampoon's Vacation'' movies. Ford, meanwhile, did spots for Lancia, the Italian carmaker, while Stallone appeared in ads for Citterio ham. (Ham seems to be a popular product for Stallone, who has also pitched the Ito brand in Japan.) Both George Clooney and Gwyneth Paltrow have appeared in spots for Martini & Rossi, the drinks company. A common theme in the Italian ads is self-deprecating humor. In contrast to their U.S. lives, in which the Hollywood stars are mobbed with attention, when they are in Italy at least in the ads they can sometimes go incognito. In a spot starring Clooney, for instance, the actor tries, unsuccessfully, to get into a party when the host does not recognize him. Many of the Japanese ads, by contrast, simply use the actors' star power for straight endorsements, a la Murray in ''Lost in Translation,'' where he delivers pitch lines like, ''For relaxing times, make it Suntory time.'' While Murray is meant to portray an over-the-hill actor, many Hollywood celebrities head to Japan to make a buck in real life. They have included Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Charlize Theron, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sean Connery who pitched Suntory in real life.
2004 Copyright International Herald Tribune. http://www.iht.com
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