John Hodgman, who plays the PC in the popular “I’m a Mac” ads, recently sat down with San Francisco’s 7×7 and answered a few questions about Twitter, Michael Cerra, and naturally, his famous role opposite Justin Long.
When asked about the degree of improvisational freedom he and Long are given in the ads, Hodgman answered:
We’ve always been encouraged to improvise and have fun. Occasionally, ad-libs will work their way into the ads, but more often, what makes it into the ads is the tone that we build up through improvising. For understandable reasons, the ads are very carefully written and for very gratifying reasons they’re also well-written, and so it’s our pleasure to perform them as they’re written and find new things in the corners: in looks, in gestures, in reactions, and occasionally, there’s a line that we can add to it.
It’d be interesting to know which lines in particular were Hodgman or Long originals, but to be fair, there’s not a whole lot of room for improv in a 30 second spot.
You can check out the entire interview over here.
Tue, Nov 10, 2009
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