Doritos has a contest for the Super Bowl where normal people can make a commercial and submit it, and the winner gets a million dollars and their ad shown during the game. My buddy Scott decided to enter this year. He spent about 2 grand making a commercial and sent it in. He was selected as a top ten finalist, and lucky enough, everyone in the top ten gets to go to the Super Bowl and sit in the Doritos box.
None of the ten knows who won until they show the commercial during the game. And wouldn’t you know it, during the first quarter, I see a commercial for Doritos. And it’s Scott’s commercial! He fucking won. A million dollars. Insane.
And then today, I saw another friend of mine get some good news. He got cast as a regular in a new sitcom, which reminded me of a story about him.
I was on the set of “Selfie” for the filming of the first episode I wrote. We had cast this goofy, funny guy as Henry’s (John Cho) assistant. I was hanging out by the monitors during some down time, and on set, there’s a ton of down time. And this Henry assistant guy was talking about something, and he mentioned that he was in the upcoming Jurassic Park sequel (which also had a big commercial during the Super Bowl).
Well, as soon as I hear information like that, I start asking a ton of questions. One of which was: how’d you get that gig?
The answer: he wrote the director a letter.
He sat down in his apartment and wrote a letter to the director of Jurassic Park telling him how much he admired his movies and that he’s an actor and he’d love to be in it. And the director wrote back! And now he’s in motherfucking Jurassic Park!
But that’s not at all. Apparently (APPARENTLY!), he writes 5 letters a week. To directors and producers of things. All with the same theme: I like your work and I’d like to be involved. And this often works.
First of all, who writes letters anymore? Second, there are a billion actors in Hollywood, how could this possibly work?! Maybe because no one writes letters anymore! Anyway, this letter writing campaign also got him a part in the next Coen brothers movie. Insane, again.
So today, Deadline reported that he has scored a role for a sitcom that Shaq is doing. And I can’t help but wonder if a strongly worded letter was involved…
Notes From a Hack 
This is fantastic. Little stories like this give me hope for the world. There are people out there trying and there are nice people taking risks for the ones who are trying and that’s amazing. AMAZING.
Hang on a sec while I get all emotional on your ass. This post came at a perfect time for me. I’m a photographer in LA and business as been slow and I’ve been at a loss for what to do about it. There has been a project I’ve been wanting to start, but haven’t because I’m terrible at approaching people. But yesterday, I took a deep breath and I SENT A LETTER to the owner of a company that I want to work on the project with. I haven’t heard anything back yet, but who knows? Maybe doing something will lead to doing something. This is a reminder that I should keep doing something.
I’m gonna miss your blog.
thanks, valeri. appreciate that so much. good luck!! keep doing stuff 🙂
Some people are really good at writing letters. My brother-in-law can’t hold a simple conversation with the most talkative person in the world. When he didn’t get into the medical school of his choice, he wrote a letter asking to be let in. They accepted him.
Fast-forward a few years, and his younger brother (who went to the same undergrad as him) was rejected from the same medical school because they said they’d never heard of his undergrad or anyone who went there. My BIL again wrote a letter saying, “I went to that undergrad and I’ve been a great asset to the med school,” and they also let the brother in.
You’d never actually want my BIL for a doctor but hey, that letter writing thing works in some cases.
When this blog ends, I’m writing a strongly worded letter.
Agreed!
was it the airline commercial or when pigs fly?
airplane middle seat