Ryan Reynolds is almost as famous for his ads as he is for his acting, and that was on display Sunday night during AMC’s series finale of The Walking Dead.
Reynolds’ Maximum Effort company teamed up with AMC’s Content Room and Jimmy Kimmel‘s Kimmelot for a series of spots that used already dead characters from the show to hawk for DoorDash, Ring doorbells and accounting company Deloitte.
Laurie Holden, whose Andrea was killed off in the third season of the show, was alive and well again — well, not really alive, but undead — in the spot for Deloitte, in which she appeared in full zombie makeup and spoke of the company’s pursuit of “the juiciest brains” to help its customers.
Similarly, the decapitated head of Joe Ando-Hirsh‘s Rodney uses a random finger in his teeth to call for DoorDash and to try to share a bite with the delivery man. The driver doesn’t fall for it, taking his “delivery proof” picture from a safe distance.
Andrew West‘s undead Gareth uses his Ring to keep his distance from a real menace: human solicitors asking for donations.
Dallas Roberts‘ Milton was reanimated for a DED Talk, in which he boasts of Autodesk software’s ability to help him create — in this case a groan-powered doorknob to help his fellow walkers usually stymied by closed doors.
For his part, Reynolds told Deadline, “Ads should be fun. The Walking Dead has generated more cultural conversation over the last decade than any other property and we wanted to honor that by bringing a few characters back from the dead in some fun contextual ads. (Commercials) can be a part of the cultural conversation as they once so frequently were. They just need a little more love, attention and mischief.”
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