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
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