Not a few US actors have appeared in Japanese commercials, some who have shied away from doing ads in the US out of fear of cheapening their reputations as actors in the US or of overexposure in this country; the Japanese firms and their ad agencies pay buttloads of Yen to sign these actors (sometime with paychecks rivaling what they normally get paid for a feature movie) and the temptation of the windfall has made a lot of them take up the offers; it used to be the actors would insist the ads would never see the light of day in the US, but YT and the rest of the Interwebs have pretty much made such demands moot...
In this series of ads for a cold coffee drink, Tommy Lee Jones play the part of a space alien sent to earth to experience human behavior and lands in Japan...
Whisky ads are particularly lucrative for US actors and they have been appearing in Japanese ads for decades...
The plot of the 2003 film Lost In Translation revolved around an esteemed US actor, played by Bill Murray, who travels to Japan to film a Suntory Whisky commercial; the film was a critical success and an even greater box office success; it is one of the legendary monster return on investment stories in Hollywood since its budget was USD $4 million and has earned, to date, over USD $120 million, a return of nearly 30 times the cost; this is a scene in the movie where Murray's character shoots the commercial...
One of the other 'profits' from the film was the introduction to a wide audience of a relatively unknown actress in her first major dramatic role, Scarlett Johansson; for that fact alone, the film should be honored...
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