Local senior thespians went wild with a male stripper in an Eastside submission for Doritos’ 2016 Super Bowl commercial contest.
Kirkland filmmaker Doug Stapleton came up with the idea for the commercial’s plot after his parent’s retired and he started hearing more of their and their friends’ crazy stories. Stapleton said his wife encouraged him to “go for it” after batting around the concept for a few years.
While he originally envisioned it with women in their mid-30s and 40s, he said he realized it would be funnier if it involved a young man and older women. After searching for the perfect location, Stapleton and his producer Lois Greenberg decided to film the commercial at Pacific Regent in Bellevue over a weekend in October.
The scene takes place inside a retirement community and shatters stereotypes by revealing seniors’ wild and crazy side – while eating Doritos, of course. The ladies are shown whooping and cheering on a muscular male dancer, throwing Doritos at him in appreciation before being caught by a nurse.
The lively ladies in Stapleton’s 30-second commercial are all local actors.
After working for more than 35 years as a marine biologist, Mary Lou Mills started performing — first in a barbershop quartet and then entering theater.
“When I worked in marine biology, which was mostly full of men in those days, they always commented on how I had never had the opportunity to play team sports. And I know I really understand it, being part of a team like this is so much fun,” she said.
Mills was joined by playwright and actor Josephine DeLellis and actor Carmen Parisi. While DeLillis works and auditions regularly for film projects in Portland, Ore., this was Parisi’s first film project.
“I mostly do theater, so this was really different. There wasn’t really any memorization, this was just a small snippet that we did over and over again.”
With the long periods of cheering and shouting, some of the ladies had started to lose their voices by the end of the first day of filming.
While the cast and crew were filming in a separated room, Pacific Regent residents were spotted filing past and peeking into the room to watch the male stripper, played by a Eastside real estate attorney.
“We had a lot of fun with ‘Stripper Boy’, he was very cute”, said DeLillis. “At first, Doug told us to stare at his belly button, and then he told us to look at his belt buckle, but then he told us to look a little lower. So, we all just start staring at his package!”
In its tenth and final year, Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Contest incentivizes independent filmmakers like Stapleton to compete for the chance for their commercial to air to millions of Super Bowl viewers. The winner also receives one million dollars as a prize.
Although it was among the highest rated videos on the Doritos website, Stapleton said, the commercial did not advance to the semifinal round from the close to 4,000 entries.
Official voting will begin on the three finalists January 5th, 2016.