Voice Actor Bites Hand That Fed Him

An article came out a few days ago in Advertising Age called “Ousted Voice of Lexus Gets Revenge in New Mistubishi Spot”

It discusses how James Sloyan, who had been the voice of Lexus for 20 years and had been recently dismissed, got back at Lexus by using his highly recognizable voice in a Mistubishi radio spot to do a little “Lexus Bashing”.

The full text of the article can be found here: http://adage.com/adages/post?article_id=136963

Now call me crazy, but I’ve got to be on the side of Lexus here. AS someone who has personally written and produced more car radio and tv spots than he cares to remember and who has seen 80% of those never make the light of day, I’m the first to admit that dealing with the auto industry on almost any level, local, regional or national, can often be a pain in the neck.

But let’s look at what’s going on here. This voice actor had a 20 year run as the spokesperson of Lexus. Even if we’re only talking SAG/ AFTRA scale payments here, the guy has made millions. And as someone who has also done a bit of v.o. in his lifetime, it ain’t the hardest gig around.

Looking at Mr. Sloyan’s career, he’s had a few decent roles on Murder She Wrote, Love Boat, MacGyver and so forth. But I’m guessing he’s made more money from his stint as Lexus’ spokesperson than from everything else he’s done combined.

As it might appear he’s entering the “twilight” of his career, we can see from his IMDB listings that he hasn’t done any on-camera appearances since 2000. I guess those Lexus paychecks for the odd 15 minutes here and there in a recording studio were just too much fun to cash.

Oh, and thanks to Lexus, Mr. Sloyan’s pension is about 10 times what it would have been without his 20 years of spokes money.

20 years this jackass had the cush job of a lifetime.

Maybe Lexus was losing it’s ass like all the other car companies and decided they needed to make a change. Perhaps it would have been better for them to have had to claim bankruptcy in order to dismiss Mr. Sloyan. Now instead of being just the tiniest bit grateful he goes for a couple more bucks by doing a Mitsubishi ad designed to play off his close association with the Lexus brand. An ad designed to hurt the Lexus brand and by doing so, elevate Mitsubishi.

To me, it seems like kicking a friend when they’re down.

I’m guessing that if Mr. Sloyan had half a brain in his head, he could have gotten some really big bucks to sign some sort of non-compete agreement with Mitsubishi. Or was this just some knee jerk reaction to being slighted. Perhaps we should blame the agency folks or even Lexus themselves for not having Sloyan sign some sort of an agreement, but I don’t think that’s the point.

Very few of us can claim 20 years working in any one place. In the world of acting and in particular with commercial acting, it’s almost unheard of.

I’m not sure if this will help sell any Mitsubishi’s. I am sure that if I were ever in a position to hire an actor or voice actor, it wouldn’t be Mr. Sloyan. One would expect better of an individual with his experience and years.

I discovered this little story on a forum made up of voice actors and aspiring voice actors. I tend to think that most of those expressing their opinions on this forum, make up the latter, as it is the habit of most working actors to no do much horn tooting. It was interesting to see how almost all of these actors tended to side with Sloyan. Not a single one of them could see how his actions might be construed as inappropriate. Perhaps that’s the saddest thing of all. We all understand that actors tend to be needy and lack any type of self-esteem. But to not be able to see the other side to all of this absolutely amazes me.

Is it really all about “getting one over” or “what’s in it for me”? Or maybe I’m crazy for even thinking this way.

Now if anybody does want to work with someone as loyal as a darn bloodhound, you know where to find me.

–j.s. gilbert

jsgilbert@pacbell.net

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