I did some commercials and a couple of B movies, then a few pilots that didn't go anywhere. Eventually I did the pilot for Beverly Hills, 90210. The rest is history.
At the time of Polaroid - and I did a couple of other commercials just before I stopped doing that stuff - at that point I was at the level where they respect you and your opinion and all that sort of thing.
I think I did a couple of test commercials that didn't even make it on the air. That's how little I had really done. I knew almost nothing about the camera. In fact, I actually did know nothing about the camera.
I loved doing commercials when I did commercials. I made a living. I worked in front of a camera. I could do plays for free.
The only reason I made a commercial for American Express was to pay for my American Express bill.
I did a couple of movies in Brazil, and the actors were incredibly congenial and hung out together a lot. Even the biggest stars would do radio commercials - they're not put on a pedestal like they are in the United States.
Prior to 'The Karate Kid', I did commercials - Kool-Aid, Pepsi, milk - and I had always been cast as the all-American nice guy.
I was the singing voice of a cartoon character. I did dog food commercials. I did a lot of commercials, actually, and helped pay my rent and my classes. Then I'd get one good line or two good scenes. I was building my career and building my own experience and learning technically what it was like to be on a set and all of those things.
A month before graduation I got an off-Broadway job. Then I did some commercials, including one for MCI. You can only see half of me, but it paid well. Thank God for commercials.
A lot of student directors used to pick other students to be in their graduate films, so. I ended up doing a couple of them just for fun. Eventually, I got an agent through a friend and I did some commercials; then I got Knots Landing.
I spent a couple of years doing American films. I did a few.
I remember when Meryl Streep did an ad for American Express, the press harassed her.
I don't want to sound conceited, but people were intrigued with me and thought I was crazy and the word got around about this wacky disc jockey who could do 10 commercials in 10 minutes - what I did was make fun of the commercials.
Well, we were originally called Huey Lewis and the American Express. But on the eve of the release of our first record, our record label, Chrysalis Records was afraid that we'd be sued by American Express.
I did game shows, I did interview shows, I did talk shows, I did commercials, I did acting. But all of that was a million years ago.
I grew up watching 'Ghostbusters' and 'Knight Rider' and Hot Wheels commercials. When I got to college, having never set foot in America, I knew more American pop-culture references than my friends did.