We're talking celebrityhood, Canadian-style, with Canuck celeb couple Peter Keleghan and Leah Pinsent. The three-word definition we've arrived at: "You're that guy!"
In Keleghan's case, despite years of scene-stealing in shows like The Newsroom, Made In Canada and The Red Green Show (where he was Officer Gord), "you're that guy!" comes courtesy of a series of ads he's been starring in for a certain frequent-flyer bank card. (He's the guy who brags to the sap next to him about the superior seat-selection his card gets him).
"It's especially great to be recognized when you're at the airport waiting for your luggage," Pinsent says dryly.
"I had somebody come up to me and say 'You're that guy!' and he was pointing to the luggage carousel," Keleghan says. "Sure enough, they had a screen above the carousel playing the ad."
Still, the commercial world gave birth to a creatively-fun husband-and-wife project called Eating Buccaneers. It's a dark Canadian comedy opening this week about a group of advertisers who survive a plane crash in the Ontario woods, and whose various neuroses unfold as they try to find their way to civilization with only a box of chocolates (Buccaneer Bars) to sustain them.
Eating Buccaneers was written and directed by first-timer Bill Keenan, an ad vet known for the Pizzaville "It was a rainy day" radio spots.
"I did a radio commercial with Bill," Keleghan says, "and it turned out he'd been bouncing around ideas to show what ad people are like. And how better to show their egos and paranoid tendencies than to have them in a plane crash and try to get out of the woods together?"
