Playing to an audience of 108 million-plus viewers, a Super Bowl commercial serves as an unknown actor's ideal launching pad.
Actress, model, and former Miss USA Ali Landry can thank Doritos for helping her become a household name. Her first commercial was for the chip's 1998 Super Bowl ad, in which Landry did a series of complex acrobatic moves before eating a Doritos.
This year, there's no doubt that career-extra Jesse Heiman is on the brink of the big time after his starring role as tech nerd/Bar Refaeli make-out partner in Go Daddy's 2013 Super Bowl ad.
Heiman has been an extra — typically given names like "3rd UFO Enthusiast" or "Winking Comic Book Nerd" — in more than 200 television shows and movies, including "American Pie 2," "Spiderman," and "Entourage." But he has yet to get his big break.
"I hope this [ad] leads to the next step, whatever that may be," Heiman told Business Insider. "Hopefully a pilot, new TV show, or movie — any offers that come in are good offers."
It took a lot to nab the commercial — which Refaeli and Heiman had to shoot 65 times— that aired in front of 108 million people.
"They had me audition with a bunch of people, and in the first audition they had us kissing a blow up doll," Heiman told BI. "And the doll had a name: Lindsay Lohan." (Luckily it was sanitized in between each auditioner.)
But hopefully those days of hard auditions are over.
Heiman's agent's phone is "ringing off the hook," he told HuffPost.
If Heiman makes it big, he'll be among other celebrities who launched their careers after appearing in Super Bowl ads.
Ali Landry did a series of complex gymnastic moves in a 1998 Doritos Super Bowl ad.
Model and actress Ali Landry owes her career to her very first ad, which just happened to be Doritos' 1998 Super Bowl commercial.
"Doritos changed my life," Landry told Yahoo. "I bought my first house with Doritos."
More than a decade later, the former Miss USA is still known as the "Doritos Girl." After you watch the crazy gymnastic moves Landry did to get that Doritos ad, you'll see why:
Sean Hayes also starred in the same Doritos' 1998 Super Bowl spot.
Before he was on "Will & Grace," Sean Hayes stared at Ali Landry in awe during that same Doritos' ad that launched her career.
Betty White played a pickup football in Snicker's 2010 Super Bowl ad.
Although Betty White seems to be just about everywhere these days — from "SNL" appearances to movies to her own reality shows — the former "Golden Girl" saw a lag in her career when we entered the new Millennium.
What caused her career to get back on track? A 2010 Snickers Super Bowl commercial in which White played a crucial role in a pickup football game.
"That's what really started the little surge," White told Ad Age.
Watch the ad below:
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