Anyone who has seen Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation must wonder for at least a second if there is truth in Bill Murray’s character of a famous American actor in Japan to film a commercial. Well, there definitely is. Huge American and European stars have been hawking products in Japanese commercials for decades.
Some of the biggest names in Hollywood, some of whom you’d never expect to be selling cars and shampoo in the States, are happy to do it in Japan. While there was a time those stars may have been labeled as “sell-outs” in the U.S. for doing commercials, it was very lucrative to appear in ads in Japan, without the baggage. Here are just a few of the celebrities who have made those Japanese ads.
Natalie Portman
Natalie Portman is known in the U.S. for her Miss Dior perfume commercials, but in Japan, she’s better known for selling Lux shampoo. The commercial we found is a pretty standard shampoo commercial, very similar to one you’d see in the States with long, flowing locks being flung to and fro.
Jodie Foster
Two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster is one of those actors you’d least expect to see in a commercial, but in the ‘90s, Foster starred in a campaign for Honda Civics. The commercials are pretty bland, with lots of shots of a smiling Foster standing near the Hondas she was selling.
George Clooney
He may be one of the biggest movie stars of all time, but George Clooney isn’t above slinging coffee in Europe or doing extensive voice-over work on American commercials. In Japan, he’s the face of Kirin Beer in at least a couple of commercials, co-starring with some CGI songbirds.
Keanu Reeves
Keanu Reeves has developed a reputation for being one of the nicest guys in Hollywood. It makes sense that a product would be interested in having him as a spokesman. In the United States, he occasionally does a commercial or two, most notably for Squarespace. In Japan, he’s also popular. Like a lot of Western celebs, he’s been hired by the whiskey maker Suntory to do commercials. As always, he looks cool doing it.
Madonna
At the height of Madonna’s fame in the ‘80s and ‘90s, it would’ve been very rare to see her endorse a product on TV in the United States, but in Japan, she was part of a big campaign for Takara, a whiskey made by Blanton’s for the Japanese market. The commercials don’t look like they took up much of the Material Girl’s time, however, as they are just cuts from her music videos spliced with buzzwords and shots of the bourbon.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Lately, Arnold Schwarzenegger has been showing up in more and more commercials. At the 2024 Super Bowl, he was in a State Farm ad, for example. It seems the former Governator likes the idea of picking up a nice paycheck for a minimal amount of work, and who can blame him? It’s something he’s been doing in Japan for decades, going back to the pinnacle of his fame in the ‘90s when he endorsed an energy drink called Alinamin V. These might be the strangest of all the commercials too, featuring Schwarzenegger’s giant head popping out the bottle and other over-the-top images.
Miles Davis
No one defines “cool” quite like Miles Davis did. The late jazz legend had a reputation for being prickly, but fans still wanted to be him. His sound on trumpet was unique, as was his style, and it all oozes authenticity. Endorsing products in the U.S. might have branded him a “sell-out” to his fans, but in the ‘80s, he could go to Japan, where he was also a big star, and shoot commercials for Honda Scooters, and no one would be the wiser in North America.
Britney Spears
Britney Spears might be the least surprising person on this list. At the height of her fame in the late ‘90s, she’s exactly the kind of celebrity that would be huge in Japan. Spears took advantage of that fame, starring in a series of commercials for Go Go Tea. The pop star also appeared in an ad for Mikakuto Gummy Candies as well.
Harrison Ford
Back in 1996, Entertainment Weekly reported that Hollywood stars could make anywhere from $500K to $2 million for a couple of days’ work on a Japanese commercial. It explains why actors like Harrison Ford, who no one would have expected to see in an ad in the ‘90s in America, would spend a few days in Japan shooting commercials for Kirin beer. We don’t know how much he made, but it’s safe to assume the Star Wars star made enough to pay Jabba back and then some.
Cameron Diaz
SoftBank is one of the largest holding companies in Japan and it loves to bring over American stars to promote its services. One such star was Cameron Diaz, who in the mid-’00s starred in commercials and print ads all over Tokyo for the cell phone giant. No doubt such a campaign made it possible for the actress to semi-retire in 2014.
Brad Pitt
Coffee, specifically canned coffee, seems to be one of the more lucrative areas of advertising for Western stars in Japan. None other than Brad Pitt even showed up in one in the ‘90s. Pitt stars as an office worker getting more work done after drinking a can of Roots Coffee.
Bruce Willis
Bruce Willis is big in Japan. He’s been spotted selling everything from cars to financial services. Daihatsu and SoftBank have both hired the Die Hard legend to hawk their wares. He even learned a phrase or two in Japanese for the spots.
Sharon Stone
Just as in America and Europe, Japanese beauty brands love to hire a famous actress to taut their product’s ability to make everyone as beautiful as they are. Sharon Stone was a major spokeswoman for Vernal soaps, for example. Stone also appeared in commercials for jewelry and other luxury wares.
Ben Stiller
When you watch the Kirin ad Ben Stiller did back in the late ‘90s, it makes you wonder if it was the main inspiration for Zoolander. It feels like an outtake from the movie about a male model, it’s so goofy. Don’t get it wrong, it’s supposed to be over-the-top and funny, so it fits the character of Derek Zoolander perfectly, even if Stiller wasn’t actually playing the role. It’s also better than Zoolander 2.
Francis Ford Coppola
Of course, the most famous example in the West of a star doing Japanese commercials is the fictional Bob Harris (Bill Murray) doing Suntory ads in Lost In Translation. The inspiration for the film, or part of it, had to be Sofia Coppola’s father, Francis Ford Coppola doing ads in Japan in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Including one for Fuji Cassettes, and yes, Suntory whiskey.
Sylvester Stallone
Rocky star Sylvester Stallone got on the Japanese advertising train back in the mid-’90s, including doing some very strange commercials for Bayern Sausages. An Italian-American doing ads for German sausages in Japan. It’s the UN of commercials!
Brooke Shields
Back in the ‘80s, Brooke Shields was huge. For much of the decade, she found a lot of work in Japan in ads for everything from tissues to coffee to stereos. No doubt that helped her pay for her Princeton education, where she studied during a break from her career in the mid-’80s.
Richard Gere
In 2009, Japanese company Suntory bought Orangina, the sparking orange beverage from France. Almost immediately, Suntory did what they had done so often in the past, they hired an American actor for an ad campaign. Richard Gere starred in a few commercials for the brand at the dawn of the 2010s, playing a classic Japanese comedy character from the ‘60s and ‘70s named Tora-san.
Audrey Hepburn
By the early 1970s, Hollywood legend Audrey Hepburn had already semi-retired from acting, starring only sporadically in a few movies in the ‘70s before bowing out completely. Still, she did work in Japan occasionally in commercials, including one for wigs from 1970, which seems pretty odd, but hey, it’s Audrey Hepburn, so who are we to question it?
Leonardo DiCaprio
Even the great Leonardo DiCaprio has gotten in on the Japanese ad business, hawking credit cards in the ‘90s and Jim Beam more recently. You might expect the latter, but definitely not the former, in the United States.
Anne Hathaway
Anne Hathaway is another glamorous actress who has been known to pop up in luxury and beauty ads in Japan. One product, Lux Shampoo, is well known for using American stars in its ads for its products. The rom-com star pitched for the company a few times in the mid-’00s.
Sammy Davis, Jr.
Suntory Whiskey definitely takes the win for grabbing some of the biggest stars from the U.S. to sell its products. Even way back in the ‘70s, it was paying Sammy Davis, Jr. to do commercials for them. They even got him to scat for one of them, and it’s a gem.
Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones has been a regular in Japanese commercials for a long time, and watching some of the more bizarre ones, he’s clearly having a lot of fun. It definitely references his role in the Men in Black series, but beyond that, it’s hard to pin what they are about, exactly, except that he’s selling coffee.
Nicolas Cage
It’s no surprise to find Nicolas Cage on this list, now is it? Going back a couple of decades, the actor did a series of commercials for Pachinko games, which are Japanese slot machines and pinball machines.
Kyle MacLachlan
In what might be the absolute best and most bizarre entry on this list, Kyle MacLachlan starred in a whole series of commercials for Georgia Coffee as Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks. The commercials played out like a bizarre mystery, just like the show, and also featured other characters from the show, and the famous intro. It’s truly awesome… and weird… and awesome.
Sean Connery
If you want someone elegant and cool to advertise your whiskey, why not hire James Bond himself, Sean Connery? That’s exactly what Suntory did in the early ‘90s and he’s everything you want him to be in the ad.
Hugh Jackman
When you have the talents of a true song-and-dance man like Hugh Jackman, it’s smart to take advantage of that. It’s what Lipton Ice Tea did in 2010 to amazing results with the Deadpool & Wolverine star dancing around a Japanese hotel.
Cindy Crawford
Cindy Crawford was the most famous model in the world in the ‘80s and ‘90s, so it’s no surprise she’d been seen on Japanese TV selling lots of stuff, as she was virtually everywhere else in the world. For example, in Japan, she hawked a sports drink called Pocari Sweat. Sweat seems like an odd thing to name your drink, but Crawford could sell anything in those days.
John Travolta
Canned drinks are huge in Japan and the competition for customers is intense, which has led to a lot of American stars getting lucrative gigs. John Travolta is one such star, who was hired to appear in an ad for Tokyo Drink. Naturally, he danced his way through it.
Hulk Hogan
Professional wrestling has long been hugely popular in Japan. American wrestling stars like Hulk Hogan have been traveling to Japan to work for decades. With that fame, came commercials for the Hulkster, like one in the early ‘90s hawking Hitachi Air Conditioners.
Quentin Tarantino
It’s not always just actors either. Quentin Tarantino, whose Kill Bill movies are a tribute to Japanese culture, popped up in an ad for SoftBank’s cell phone service. The director looks like he had a blast making the spots, too.
Kiefer Sutherland
When 24 debuted, it instantly became one of the biggest hits on TV, and that success translated to Japanese TV as well. So much so, that Kiefer Sutherland was hired by the energy drink Calorie Mate to star in a series of commercials in the style of the spy show.
There was a time when “selling out” was a real concern for artists and their fans. It’s far more common today to see big stars in commercials. Before it became okay to be seen selling stuff on TV, those big names could head to Japan for a nice paycheck, without retribution from hardcore fans. Until the internet, it was rare for an American or European to even know the stars had done it. Now with the internet, we get to see all these great commercials they were doing.
