bcholmes | That's Not a Real "Man in the Street"; That's an Actor

I've told this story a few times. I was watching TV and an ING Direct commercial came on. They were going with their usual patter: you want to save your money; with ING Direct you can! Why can't you save your money without ING Direct? We'll tell you why.

Cut to a sequence of "man on the street" interviews. The first man on the street is a bald black man wearing a business suit. He says, "Because banks make it too hard". Cut to the next intervew.

Except, I'm stuck back on that first interview. Me, I'm thinking: that's Malcolm Xerxes. Malcolm is a Toronto-area actor. He's been in some TV shows that've been filmed here. I've gotten to know him through the Toronto Trek convention. In fact, just this past convention, I was telling him this story.

As I was watching this commercial, my brain blew a gasket. I thought, "Wait a minute! That's not a real 'man on the street' interview. He's an actor." But here's the thing. I never really believed that the person wasn't an actor. But because it was an actor that I knew, some suspension of disbelief bubble was burst for me. And I wasn't even really aware that I was sitting in a suspension of disbelief bubble. I like to think of myself as a cynic about TV advertisements, but apparently my brain is more willing to take commercials at face value than I was aware of.

It was a bit freaky.

Like I said, I mentioned this story to Malcolm last month at the Trek convention. I was sitting with linuxspice when I managed to flag Malcolm down. We chatted briefly, him wearing his typical black leather pants and "The Punisher" T-shirt. Since getting to know him, I spot him frequently in Canadian-made TV series. Like his recurring role in Nikita re-runs.