"Dude, you're getting a Dell," Steven says to William as they discreetly touch each other's fists in victory. "Thank you, Steven," she finally replies, won over despite the heavy sales tactics. Lindsay, that she should buy a Dell for her quiet but eager son William. It featured Steven in a department store trying to convince an initially skeptical mom, Mrs. The campaign's signature line didn't appear until the fourth commercial, which ran heavily over the summer and fall. Feffercorn, whose rhododendrons he has apparently damaged. That debut spot remains one of Curtis' favorites, as well as the third, where Steven videotapes another appeal for a Dell, this time standing beside oafish friend Jeff and directing a pitch to the kid's parents next door, Mr. It featured Steven talking directly to the camera while he videotaped his pitch to his father _ stressing all the free accessories and appealing to his dad's love of bargains. He's a great actor who just turns into Steven."Īfter 60 takes or so, the first commercial was a wrap. But in moments, she knew: "Ben was so it. When she saw Curtis' casting tape, she first thought maybe he was too old for the part. Claire Bennett, a senior ad account executive at Dell, was in on the selection process. The actor was called back three times before winning the role over four younger hopefuls, who had their moms in tow. "I wanted to make him approachable," Curtis says. He also tapped his experience with physical comedy, producing some amusing gestures and facial expressions. If anything, Curtis drew on a surfer dude attitude, playing the character not as a laid-back goofball but with some cunning exuberance for his PC cause. He'd never watched much Leave It to Beaver, so the Haskell factor didn't come into play. The script was really well-written, and there's a little manipulation of the parents going on, which is something I was pretty good at as a kid." "So that's what I did _ I just tried to bring out young, kid energy and something appealing. "I really had no clue about what to expect."įinally, he was handed a script and told to memorize it and play the part any way he felt it would work. "I looked around, and most of the kids looked like five years younger than me," he says. So Curtis donned a sweat shirt and sat in a room of 100 or so youngsters. They were interested in boys ages 12 to 17. When Curtis was 20 and a sophomore, his manager, Renate English of Friendly Faces in Monmouth, N.J., alerted him to an audition for a national commercial. "I never imagined all this could happen from that first commercial." "A lot of amazing doors have opened for me," he says. He just read for the youth lead in Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator III, for a film by director Stanley Donan (Singin' in the Rain, Damn Yankees), for a horror flick and for a lengthy list of TV pilots and soaps. For the past few weeks, he has been in Los Angeles filming the next Dell commercial and auditioning for an array of roles. I'm flattered."Ĭurtis has taken a semester off from NYU to pursue the many acting opportunities that have come his way. "I tried logging on to one site, but you have to be a member, and I wasn't," he says with a laugh, talking recently by cell phone from Los Angeles. The Wall Street Journal noted this month that Curtis has one of the biggest fan site followings on the Net tied to an advertising campaign. Young girls scream when they see him, mail him adoring letters and post love notes and Ben Curtis trivia on Internet bulletin boards and fan pages. He can't walk down the street without people of all ages pointing, asking for autographs or yelling things like, "Dude, you're getting a Dell!" or "Where's my computer?" In Curtis' case, he's also evoking reactions usually reserved for pop stars. Today, Curtis is Dell-uged with national attention, the latest pitch person to make a dent in the pop culture lexicon in the tradition of "Whassup?!!" and "Where's the beef?" The once shy kid, who became a professional magician at 13, has learned that he can work a new kind of magic. The fact is, barely more than a year ago, Curtis was an almost-broke, serious drama student at New York University's Tisch School for the Performing Arts. Nor is he a charming slacker with a knack for sales. For the record, he's not really a teenager, but 21-year-old Ben Curtis of Chattanooga, Tenn.
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