“Cross” star Isaiah Mustafa said Aldis Hodge completely improvised a nod to Mustafa’s longtime career with male grooming brand Old Spice, saying the line wasn’t in the script at all.
“That was never written — Aldis just pull that one out of nowhere,” Mustafa told TheWrap. “I had a comeback. I have to protect myself, my investments. So I had to come back, but it wasn’t aired. The fact that he even mentioned it is a testament to the great relationship that I had with the brand, that I still have. So it was a nice homage. And I was like, ‘OK, I appreciate that.’”
Today, fans know Mustafa as Alex Cross’ right-hand man, John Sampson, in Prime Video’s hit series, “Cross.” But for several years, he appeared in commercials as the “Old Spice Guy.” His first commercial spot was in Old Spice’s “Smell Like a Man, Man” campaign in 2010 during the Super Bowl, where he famously says “Hello Ladies.” While he’s branched out, taking his talents to films and TV series like the modern “It” franchise, “Shadowhunters” and “Madea’s Big Happy Family,” Mustafa has returned through the years to reprise his iconic role.
Hodge says the Old Spice line in Episode 2: “Ride the White Horsey.” At the time, John is trying to convince Alex to take up Elle’s offer for a home-cooked meal at her place. When John tells Alex to go upstairs, get dressed for the occasion and don’t forget to put on some “smell good,” Alex responds back with: “Smell good? What you know about smell good? You smell like moth balls and Old Spice.”
While Mustafa may not have known about the gag, “Cross” creator and showrunner Ben Watkins said the Old Spice jokes started flowing as soon as they knew he’d be joining the show.
“As soon as we knew it was Isaiah, of course, all the jokes start coming. And it’s just like, how can you have this dude in the show without harvesting that?” Watkins said. “So we had everybody, and I have to be honest, I don’t even remember if that, because we changed that. It wasn’t originally that. It used to be, Sampson saying, ‘Go and put some smell good on.’ Then we changed like, ‘Oh, let’s give him a parting shot. Aldis was improvising things, we had a producer on set, Umar White, who’s throwing stuff out there, and we had writers all the time who were coming up with these Old Spice nods. And we even had our crew, the folks in props, would put things. In fact, if you watch the whole series, there are moments where there’s Old Spice in this, in the shot, there’s just a nod to the fact that he had that legacy.”
All eight episodes of “Cross” are available now on Prime Video.
