Remember that Cadburys ad from... ooh, around 2007 in which a gorilla plays drums to Phil Collins’ In The Air Tonight? How could you not? The calm patience of the ape, waiting for his cue is etched upon our collective memory. It had little to do with chocolate but that really didn’t matter: it was, by most folk’s reckoning, a brilliant TV ad.
You may well have assumed that that ape was CGI-ed. Not so. An actual actor – in a gorilla suit – thumped those drums. And now he has given an interview with the BBC about his experience.
Garon Michael was already a die-hard Phil Collins fan when he got the gig. He remembers hearing In The Air Tonight, aged 16, in a restaurant he was working in back then. “Back in the kitchen they would have the radio going and I would just stop working and I couldn’t leave the room until the song was over. That song is a particularly powerful song and he became the soundtrack of my life.”
Years later, Garon saw an advert in the LA Times asking for actors with a gymnastic background. Eventually Garon twigged it was an “ape thing”. Luckily, he had some experience in such a role, having played primates in not one but three previous films: Congo, Instinct and the 2001 remake of Planet Of The Apes. “(Then) we went through five and a half months of training to be a gorilla. People called me and asked me if I played the drums.”
He didn’t but still got the part. “They got me a drum instructor. When I heard that the song (for the advert) was going to be In The Air Tonight, I was just like ‘this is amazing’. And then to go and get paid to learn how to play the drums to play this commercial, it was a dream job.”
Gorilla, as the advert became known, was an instant hit. So much so that it propelled In The Air Tonight back into the UK Top 20 that September. To date, it’s Phil Collins’ last appearance in the UK singles charts.
Most actors are embarrassed to varying degrees about their early work in adland. But not Garon. “It was definitely one of the biggest highlights of my career,” he reflects.
