J.K. Simmons Explains How He Got His Most Iconic Role

By Andrew Sanford | Celebrity | August 15, 2024 |

There are a lot of actors who take jobs just because the money is good. Be it a role in a commercial or a bad movie, actors need to eat, and sometimes you have to hold your nose and sign the contract. No actor is immune to it; they just may get lucky in the parts they choose. Plenty of “for the money” roles are in “good” projects, but that tends to happen more rarely. When it does happen, it can give us magic that lasts for decades. That has certainly been the case for J.K. Simmons.

Simmons has been a working actor for decades. He’s performed on stage, at one point earning a Drama Desk Award Nomination. His work on television has included fantastic shows like OZ, Law & Order, and more recently, Invincible. In 2015 he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Whiplash. It was a much-deserved achievement for someone who has spent plenty of time on the silver screen. Still, when we’re talking about what J.K. Simmons will be remembered for, we have to get a little crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle.

No, I’m not talking about Peter Parker’s overbearing boss at the Daily Bugle. I’m talking about the Yellow M&M. Simmons has voiced the bipedal chocolate candy since the ’90s. The ads, like the man, have appeared on big and small screens. They visit our homes at Christmastime in the same 4:3 aspect ratio as when it first aired. The M&M ads have taken on a life of their own, and J.K. Simmons is pretty damn grateful for them.

Simmons talked to GQ about his most iconic roles. You can see him light up when discussing the yellow M&M, but he thought he was better suited for red. “I had just done New York Undercover, a Dick Wolf cop show where I played a uniformed cop, a New York Cop, fast-talking…bad cop on the take, you know?” Simmons explained. “I might have been in the middle of shooting that or I’d just finished it, and I showed up at this audition and there are little character descriptions. The red M&M, he’s a fast-talking, wise, blah blah blah, and then the yellow M&M is this slow, sweet, kinda dumb, you know. I’m in Red M&M mode…you go in, Janet Eisenberg is this wonderful casting director, ‘Okay, hi, so you’ll read yellow,’ and I was like, ‘whoa whoa whoa.’ It was like I was talking to Scorsese about something.”

As we know, Simmons would relent, but it took some convincing. As he explained to GQ, “I said, ‘Nah — I’m Red.’ Red’s fast-talking blah blah blah blah, I gotta be Red.’ And she was like ‘I mean, you absolutely could, you’re a wonderful actor, but I really see you as Yellow.’ We had this ridiculous back-and-forth with her talking me into auditioning for the yellow M&M. Thank you, Janet. Billy West, of course, is cast as the Red M&M, and we’ve been doing it for — is it thirty years? It’s been a long time.”

It all worked out for Simmons. The yellow M&M became a “for the money” part that granted him a lot of life opportunities. “As that campaign grew and Billy and I became entrenched as Red and Yellow and the salary went up, that was the first time that I felt like I’m in a position now, financially, where I don’t have to take every single acting job and be away from my family for three weeks in wherever,” Simmons said. “I can do what I want to do, and I can try to stay home, have a life and career at the same time.”

The career Simmons has had has been spectacular, to say the least. That’s thanks, in part, to a yellow candy and casting director who knew enough to tell an actor to just go with it.