IN CASE YOU'RE wondering who that delectable eye candy in the new Old Spice commercial is, he's Isaiah Mustafa, a former NFL player turned actor. You know, the man "your man could smell like."
The TV ad hasn't even been on the air long, but it's destined to go down as a Madison Avenue classic. In it Mustafa emerges shirtless from a shower and says in a rich baritone, "Hello, ladies."
Your eyes lock on his chest, but his voice commands you to look away.
"Look at your man," he says. "Now back to me. Now back at your man. Now back to me. Sadly, he isn't me. But if he stopped using lady-scented body wash and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like he's me."
The makers of Old Spice are going to sell a gazillion gallons of this stuff.
Ever since Mustafa's "manmercial," as it's being referred to online, hit the airwaves Feb. 8, women have been fanning themselves and laughing at the same time.
It's no wonder. Mustafa, who's 6-foot-3, 200 pounds, is a head turner. He even looks as if he smells good. Make no mistake, though. This is all fun and fantasy.
"Look down," Old Spice guy says in the ad. "Back up. Where are you? You're on a boat with the man your man could smell like. What's in your hand? Back at me. I have it. It's an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again, the tickets are now diamonds! Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not a lady. I'm on a horse!"
The monologue is delivered tongue-firmly-in-cheek, an approach that Mustafa stumbled across after he jokingly delivered the lines in a voice-mail message he left for buddy Jake Plummer of the Denver Broncos. After listening again to the message, Mustafa thought it was funny and decided to say the lines that way instead of playing it straight. During his audition in December, he watched the reaction. "I could see everybody out of the corners of my eyes. I could see them nodding so I knew I was onto something . . . It really is a version of myself. I've never taken myself too seriously.
It is what it is."
The ad took four days and 80 takes and has garnered millions of hits on YouTube (Old Spice puts the count at upward of 3 million), propelling Mustafa to Madison Avenue fame. The campaign is aimed at men and women and is called, "Smell Like a Man, Man."
But being a spokesperson isn't quite what he had in mind when Mustafa was considering a post-football career. He thought he might teach. After studying history at Arizona State, he taught high school, but was put off by teen girls who kept crushing on him.
"I was like, 'I am married. I'm also 26,' " Mustafa recalled. "Eventually, I said enough of that. I'm not going to do that anymore."
His next move was a brief foray into the restaurant business, opening a branch of his mother's barbecue restaurant in Los Angeles. When that didn't work, Mustafa decided to try acting, his passion in high school. He didn't worry about how hard it would be since "no one's ever been able to tell me that I couldn't do anything." (He played four years in the NFL despite never having played high school football.)
A divorced father of a 9-year-old daughter, Mustafa lives in L.A., where he hopes his gig with Old Spice will lead to bigger and better acting roles. But one thing he's not looking for is companionship. Sorry, ladies.
"I have a wonderful girlfriend," he said. "A nice girl. A dancer. She does professional dancing - not a pole dancer, as most people like to think."
Mustafa, whose latest credits include a gig on ABC's "Castle," hopes the Old Spice ad will make him the next Denzel Washington or Will Smith. At the very least, he hopes he can get an agent. So, what does Mustafa really smell like? Old Spice.
"They're paying my bills right now. Of course I smell like Old Spice."
Mmmm.
Send e-mail to heyjen@phillynews.com. My blog: http://go.philly.com/heyjen.
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