J.K. Simmonsis an Oscar-winning actor best known for portraying the violently obsessed music teacher Fletcher inWhiplash, and the Web Crawler-hatingnewspaper editor J. Jonah Jamesonin Sam Raimi’sSpider-Mantrilogy, among many other roles. However, the actor has revealed that his most life-changing role didn’t come in the form of a movie or a TV show, but in a long-running series of commercials that many fans still don’t know he appeared in.
As well as being synonymous withSpider-Manand Jazz music (a strange combination),J.K. Simmons has voiced the iconic yellow M&M for the last 30 years. During a recentinterview with GQ, Simmons reflected on his time voicing the beloved candy creation and revealed thatit is the most important and life-changing acting job he’s ever received. Voicing the yellow M&M was never going to earn J.K. Simmons an Oscar. However, it gave him the financial freedom to be selective aboutthe projects he worked on, and spend time with his family. He explained:
“Billy West, of course, is cast as the red M&M. And we’ve been doing it, is it 30 years? It’s been a long time. As that campaign grew, and Billy and I became entrenched as Red and Yellow, and the salary went up. That was the first time that I felt like I’m in a position now financially where I don’t have to take every single acting job and be away from my family for three weeks in wherever. I can do what I wanna do, and I can try to stay home, have a life and a career at the same time.”
J.K. Simmons Originally Auditioned for the Red M&M
Once you hear J.K. Simmons as the Yellow M&M, it’s impossible not to hear it. Simmons puts on a slow drawling speech pattern, but the deep baritone voice is unmistakably his. However, the actor revealed that it wasn’t always supposed to be that way, ashe initially wanted to audition to play the Red M&M. Simmons said he had come off a cop procedural where his character talked very fast and very slickly, which he thought was perfect for the Red M&M.
Simmons explained, “I had just done New York Undercover… where I played a uniform cop, a New York cop, fast-talking, questionably ethical… and I show up at this audition, and there’s little character descriptions of, ‘The red M&M. He’s this fast-talking, wise, blah, blah, blah.’ And the yellow M&M is a slow, sweet, kinda dumb, you know. I’m in red M&M mode, right?” He went on to add:
“[I] go in. Janet Eisenberg, this wonderful casting director. [She goes] ‘So you’ll read yellow…’ I was like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa.’ I said, ‘Nah, I’m red.’ Andwe had this ridiculous back and forth with her talking me into auditioning for the yellow M&M. Thank you, Janet.”
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The red and yellow M&M ad campaign had been running for years before J.K. Simmons got involved. Simmons joined the campaign in 1996, taking over from John Goodman.Since being granted the financial freedom afforded by such a lucrative campaign, J.K. Simmons was able to play the roles he would become most synonymous with, like J. Jonah Jameson and Fletcher. Simmons has also worked with some incredible directors and writers, like the Coen Brothers, Aaron Sorkin, Damien Chazelle, Zack Snyder, Jason Reitman, and Andy Serkis.
