TechEye has uncovered the name of the actor who did the Steve Jobs Tea TV gig for a talent agency in Taipei: Brook Hall. He's an American expat living in Taiwan since 2001, with over 60 TV commercials to his credit already on the island.
Hall is in his 40s, works as a theater producer and director for top cultural and government agencies across the island, and tells TechEye that while the Jobs gig was fun to do - and that he's aware of the global attention from the video - he is ready to move on, and, in fact, has moved on already.
"That ad is history to me now," Hall told TechEye in a recent phone conversation from his home in Taipei.
"I've got many new projects on my plate as a producer and director here, and these advertisement jobs I take from time to time are just a way to do something interesting in between major projects.
"Upcoming shows include a birthday party bash for Taiwan's 100th anniversary as a nation and a Broadway show I'm putting on at the capital city's National Theater."
So how did he do it, the faux Jobs press conference hawking Taiwan tea and a free iPad?
In Hall's own words: "The shoot in Hsinchi Science Park was a fun three hours of trying to imitate Mr Jobs - but you need to realise also that there was a great makeup and hair team, and little wires that pull your eyes and cheeks that can reshape your face a bit.
"I just studied the Jobs walk from internet videos and his speech patterns as well."
Hall said that the Jobs impersonation came across as so authentic that even his good friends in Taipei did not know it was him when they spoke about "the cool Steve Jobs lookalike on TV."
"When I told them that was me, they simply did not believe me at first," Hall said. "But time to move on now, I don't want to be known forever as the guy who was a Steve Jobs lookalike on Taiwanese TV!"
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxvky2jlBgk
2009 PROFILE TAIPEI TIMES
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2009/01/26/2003434672
Taiwan's 'face of Steve Jobs' Brook Hall has a story to tell. And it's much bigger than one 21-second TV ad.
[hat tips to Torch Pratt and Rookie of CCU] Thanks, mates!
It was all smoke and mirrors, little wires and a great hair and make-up team in Taiwan, and the
magic of television editing.
And no, he's not Steve Jobs, but a longtime expat in Taiwan named Brook Hall
sure is a good lookalike for the Apple chief exec. Hall who plays the
role of "Steve Jobs" in a popular tea drink commerical airing on
Taiwan TV, he's almost a dead ringer for the tech icon -- and the
similiarity is so strong that the video has gone viral across the
globe with over 185,000 hits on one YouTube channel created by
Zenroll.
Although Hall has never been identified before as the lookalike Steve
Jobs in the recent tea commercial, he now confirms it is indeed him. However, he has a much
bigger story to tell and this blog will tell it below. Read on.
A tea company set up the advert, and it was part part of an iPad
giveaway the firm was sponsoring. The ad was not sponsored by Apple and Steve Jobs
has not even seen it, most likely, according to sources.
From Hall's perspective, the Jobs gig was -- in Hall's own words -- -- "a fun three hours to try to imitate him -- there was a great
makeup and hair team, and little wires that pull your eyes and cheeks
that can reshape your face a bit. I just studied the walk and the
speech patterns."
But Hall has moved on, and while he is
aware of the how the video has gone viral all over the world, he is concentrating on his work as a theater producer and director in Taiwan, where TV commercial gigs are just a part-time job (although he done over 60 of them over the past seven years).
True enough, the Taiwan TV ad video, just 21 seconds long, gained
worldwide traction among Jobs watchers and bloggers everywhere, from
Taipei to Tiananmen, from Mountain View to Manhattan.
The TV ad made huge waves in the blogosphere in July
-- picked up by TechEye in London and
BoingBoing (and first posted by Kara Swisher at AllThingsD on July 7))
-- giving Steve Jobs fans another viral video to file away in the
doppelganger department.
But Brook Hall is much more than a one-time Steve Jobs lookalike TV
advertisement actor, and in a recent email he explained that
he has appeared in over 60 Taiwanese commercials over the past seven
years. He came to Taiwan in 2001 and he's been here ever since.
The ''Steve Jobs'' gig was just one of many ads he has shot in Taipei.
"I've been played such characters in ads here as George Washington,
Forrest Gump, Ronald Mcdonald, Kenny G and Bono -- Neil Armstrong, too
-- as well as a lot of non-famous TV ad characters. In an upcoming
ad campaign, I am a scarecrow-on stilts, but I can't release the sponsor yet," Hall said.
In fact, Hall is a trained and experienced actor -- he's done New York
City and Broadway -- and the TV ads he does in Taiwan, including the
now-famous Jobs ad, are "all just a way to keep my days
inteteresting."
Hall has seen plenty during his time in Taiwan.
"I was the director of a huge Taiwanese-language musical that got into
the hands of politicians jockeying for control to use it for southern
Taiwan csmpaigning," he recalls. "Their bickering led to all the
producers betting their shirts, and the entire staff, cast, and crew
came away empty handed -- but not before a powerful show-stopping
(literally) speech from the star to the audience in the middle of the
show at the National Theater in Taipei."
This year of 2011 being ''Year 100'' in the history of the Republic of
China, the official name for Taiwan, Hall is one of five directors
selected to create festivities for the ROC's 100th birthday
celebrations. For the county of Changhua in southern Taiwan, which is
hosting the all-Taiwan sports games to cap off its run-up to big 100
year celebrations in October, Hall was selected to co-directing the
opening ceremony.
''Think 2000-plus performers mixing entertainment with local history
and cultural traditions. It's going to be huge, Olympics huge, and
I'm co-director," he says.
Hall has more on his plate, too.
A large entertainment company in
Taipei Is going to re-produce a Broadway musical that Hall directed at
the National Concert Hall in 2010.
Says Hall: "It's going to be Taiwan's biggest English-language
production ever and will see five Broadway stars here to join the
local cast and crew -- including Taiwanese celebrities.
And hopefully, that will kick off an annual production -- that the
same company will produce to tour major cities in Asia."
Hall says that he had fun doing the Steve Jobs advert, but
that it was
just a three-hour shoot that he did months ago and is history now, as
far he is concerned.
He's aware of all the links about the ad in the
global blogosphere, but he is not concerned with the ad anymore, he says.
He wants to move on, and hopes the media will move on with him.
He's more interested in focusing on the future, and the good things coming
up in his work as a producer and director in Taiwan's political and entertainment
circles, and he now does not want to be the center of worldwide media attention "just because I look
like Steve Jobs from a certain angle."
So now you know who the man was behind the famous "faux" Steve Jobs press conference ad on Taiwanese TV, and now you know what's in store for him in the near future, too. Stay tuned. Brook Hall is on a roll. And he's got the role of a lifetime, too, as an enterprising and savvy expat in Taiwan's multi-cultural island mix.
IT doesn't look like him. I don't think.
maybe it is?
I was thinking that it looked like Jonathan Pryce.
.Man, I know that isn’t Steve Jobs, but whoever he is he has clearly cornered a very lucrative ex-pat market in Taiwain: White guy who kinda looks like someone else!
Looks suspiciously like Armando Ianucci to me.
http://youtu.be/YtuZ_AdxjBI