This Article is From Aug 31, 2010

Lionel Richie stars in new TV ad

Los Angeles: Lionel Richie is seen following Gary Lineker around in pursuit of his crisps in a new TV ad for Walkers Extra Crunchy crisps.

It's the first ad that Richie, known for hits such as 'Hello' and 'Dancing On The Ceiling,' has appeared in for 30 years.

He explained why he decided to agree to the project. "Once I found out that it came with enough laughs to make your sides split, then I said, 'I'm in.' Because it's got to be humorous."

He went on to say why he feels it has been important for him to have a sense of humour about himself.

If you don't really take the Mickey out of yourself, then you're really in serious trouble, he said. "The only way to survive the rock'n'roll business, the music business, the entertainment business is you better have a sense of humor cause nothing is going to go right for your career. Nothing goes exactly like you planned it."

The singer hounds Gary Lineker so much in the ad that the TV presenter sends Richie flying through a glass window. Richie said that he declined to act out that bit himself.

"They asked me one great thing. Did I want to do the stunt? And I wanted to do 'Are you out of your mind? No, no, no, no, no.' Some brave soul that looked just like me took it upon himself to take the fall for me. And of course I ended up on the other side of the glass," Richie added.

The singer said that off-screen he and Lineker got on like a house on fire. "I'm going to check again. I believe he was in the Commodores. He's that familiar. When I say that, he is that much personality to wear. I know we've spent a lot of time together before this commercial because his personality just, it matches perfectly to what I'm about. He's a great guy."

Though he had fun on set, Richie said that rather than pursuing an acting career he's going to stick to singing.

"Acting has always been fascinating to me, except that it takes a lot of time. It's hurry up, wait wait, lighting, wait wait, set up, wait wait, make-up, wait wait, lunch, he said. It's a lot of time and I think in the music business we kind of get on with it. If you're going to do a track, we do the track. If we're going to do a stage show, we do the stage show. But it's really detailed. I do like it though. If I could just take Paul and Gary around, we could do a lot of movies together because I get on with them, so it's a lot of fun."
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