James Earl Jones was getting ready to take to the stage for “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” when he talked to The Guardian in 2009, and told them that he considered himself a “journeyman actor,” who would take whatever parts came his way that he found interesting. And, he added, “I love doing commercials! Usually, they have enough money that they can take time and photograph it well.” At the time, he did have a bucket-list request, too: A role in a British commercial, because European commercials are, without a doubt, way better than their American counterparts.
That’s not to say, however, that there aren’t some great American commercials, and Jones has been in some of the best. We’re talking about the Sprint commercials where he and Malcolm McDowell pay tribute to conversations that have him declaring — with all the gravitas of Othello — “Totes mcgotes!”
Yahoo! reached out to him to see just how Sprint got him to do it, and it turns out, all they needed to do was call him. He confirmed that he hadn’t known any of the slang that he was given to say — and didn’t continue to use it — and while he was concerned younger viewers might think he was making fun of them, once the director assured him they were going for a serious, almost classical interpretation of everyday conversations, there was no looking back.
