Very few actors in the business get away without at least a few embarrassing acting jobs under their belt. As such, for every Leonardo DiCaprio there’s a The New Lassie and for every Christian Bale there’s a “Pac-Man Cereal commercial.” Likewise, someone like Transparent star Jeffrey Tambor who has been acting for over 40 years probably has dozens of stories to tell, one of which he opened up about to James Corden during a trip to The Late Late Show on Tuesday night (also detailed in his new memoir, Are You Anybody?).
As Tambor explained, the gig was a commercial for fabric softener, and his only line was, “Hey, my socks don’t cling.” Which sounds simple enough, but apparently he had such a difficult time with it that the director nearly replaced him. “Nearly” being the key word, because even after assuring him that he definitely didn’t have a clip, Corden naturally rolled the clip, to Tambor’s hilarious surprise and horror.
Corden’s other guest John Boyega also didn’t get off so easy, because he also had a clip ready to go of the The Force Awakens star’s most embarrassing job, which happened to be a drug awareness commercial that claimed marijuana would turn teens into, uh, killer zombies. Does … his head actually explode? Huh. That usually doesn’t happen from smoking pot, but what do we know.