Tony Hale had to keep his 2024 Super Bowl commercial with Beyoncé a secret, even from his 17-year-old daughter, Loy Ann.
“The hard part was that I couldn’t tell my daughter,” Hale, 53, told Variety of the Verizon ad on Monday, February 12. “My wife [Martel Thompson] is a makeup artist, so she worked with me on the commercial, and for the three weeks after, we couldn’t mention it. We were like, ‘This is killing us.’”
Hale added that when Loy Ann asked him and Thompson what they were working on, they “had to lie” to her.
“I said, ‘Oh, we’re just shooting this industrial for a tech company,’” he recalled.
During the commercial in question, which aired during the big game on Sunday, February 11, Hale served as an assistant to Beyoncé, 42, and challenged her to break the internet.
After performing a series of stunts, including hosting a lemonade stand and launching herself into space, Beyoncé said, “OK, they ready, drop the new music.”
Shortly after the ad aired, the Grammy winner released two new singles, “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages,” and announced via Instagram that her upcoming eighth studio album, Act II, also known as Renaissance Act II, will be released on March 29.
While Hale told Variety that he “didn’t have much time to chat” with Beyoncé while filming the commercial, the Veep alum is a fan of her work.
“My daughter had gone to her concert and was telling me all about it. I didn’t go, but she and I had just seen the Renaissance film,” he said. “The whole thing was incredibly cool and exciting.”
As for how he landed the gig, Hale said it came together “pretty quick.”
“I got the call from my agent, like, ‘There’s this possibility to do a Super Bowl ad.’ I was like, ‘That’s great,’” he recounted. “And then they said it was Beyoncé, and I was like, ‘What?’”
Hale and Beyoncé’s dynamic in the commercial was familiar to the actor, who played a quirky beta male trailing behind a woman with a bigger personality in both Arrested Development and Veep.
“I love the contrast of, like, just the most powerful icon, and then … me! The guy who typically plays emasculated sidekicks!” said Hale. “It’s a forte of mine.”
Although Hale didn’t tell his daughter any details about the commercial ahead of its airing, Loy Ann guessed that Beyoncé was involved after seeing a teaser in which Hale said, “Hold up, she wants me to squeeze all these lemons by myself?” (“Hold Up” is the second track of Beyoncé’s 2016 album Lemonade.)
“They sent out these teasers throughout the week. I get this text. … [Loy Ann] coded it. She’s a big Taylor Swift fan, too, and it’s all about hints and coding. She picked up on the lemons and me saying ‘hold up’ in the beginning of the teaser,” Hale said. “I kind of didn’t want her to see the teaser, because I wanted to tape her when she was watching the Super Bowl, but these teenagers are just too smart.”
