TBT: Paul Giamatti Gets Schooled in His First TV Commercial for CenturyLink

To be fair, Paul Giamatti doesn’t really need acting lessons, but in his commercial acting debut for CenturyLink he got schooled by a family of bossy film buffs, as part of the “Hollywood Insider” campaign from Arnold Worldwide.

“Hollywood Insider” is so called because as a culture we’re becoming well versed at the ins and outs of acting thanks to reality TV, behind-the-scenes access, and other entry points like TMZ, IMDb and YouTube. And this CenturyLink family seems to know it all—more than Giamatti whose work in American Splendor and Sideways is really pretty impeccable.

The family is played by a group of veteran improv comedians and they have a comical way of picking apart Giamatti as he boasts about CenturyLink’s high speed Internet service and interactive Prism TV offerings as seen in the 60-second spot, “Movie Titles,” directed by Speck and Gordon of Furlined.

There’s also more commercials that further critique Giamatti’s CenturyLink pitch a handful of “How-To” that are available across various social media channels.