Oh my! This is the best. I love orson Welles and I just heard of this the other day on Haunted America podcast with Troy Taylor. I can feel Mr. Welles pain here! Hahahaha!
Like the D.J. with the mike on, being sick, said "I feel like hell and I'm full of Anicin." Then someone called up wanting to hear that song again(!) Or more Canadian: "The Calgary Drug and R*pe Shop is on the air!" trying to say "Rug and Drape Shop". :)
I think what's going on here is that Orsen is reading the copy and watching the video playback. It seems like he's reacting to the fact that the visuals don't match what he's reading. This a definitely something that would bother an auteur filmmaker like Wells.
Most actors would have just read what was in front of them and taken the money. Not Orson Welles. If it wasn't as close to perfect as possible he would have nothing to do with it. That's how Citizen Kane got made
What does Orson even want? The directors aren't even talking back to him, Orson's making up his own problems and blaming them. So he doesn't like the script, that's the writer's problem not his. Just read it, take the check and be done with it. Cripes, some actors and their stubborn egos.
After watching some of his other commercials (and he did quite a few in the 70s and 80s), I find myself sympathizing entirely with Welles here: he didn't phone in a single one of those performances, he was just as professional about them than any personal passion project he'd have been doing at the time (especially since these gigs were meant to fund them). This is a professional actor, a good one, trying to do his best job and and getting pissed that the people who hired him are being less professional about it than he is. Imagine if YOUR boss was so bad at their job it made it so you couldn't do yours.
Eh. Welles should’ve known his place at this point in his career: a washed up, obese drunk who relegated himself to doing these ads because he was broke.
When I listen to this and think that Maurice LeMarche as Brain from "Pinky and the Brain" was considered an absolute dead ringer for Orson Welles, I don't hear it. It's a passing resemblance.
OK, I hear a hilariously pompous stage actor work himself to a meltdown because HE'S ORSON WELLES. Hey I'll voice the spot with as much pea-passion as they want, for an eighth of what they were going to pay the fellow.
Damn. What a whiny bitch. Read the lines, grab your paycheck, and leave. You've already made Citizen Kane, for Heaven's sake. You aren't Katherine Heigl.
Orson, buddy, it's a frozen peas commercial. Read the lines, collect the check, do other work, without being difficult to work with. It's only frozen peas. -- Although, "green pea-ness" ?? I've got to listen to see if that line is in there. :D Because yes, that might definitely shake up someone who was just looking for a bag of frozen peas. :laughs;
There is no way of telling someone politely when their writing is 5hit. Wells was there expecting to deal with professionals, at this point in his life hasn't he earned that at least? It seems not.
