The inside story of how Will Levis' viral mayonnaise cologne commercial got made

The tricky thing about parody is it's only funny when performers don't let their audience know that they know what they're doing is funny.

"Weird Al" never winks to the camera and says "get a load of this fat suit." Dr. Evil never explains the humor of trying to kill Austin Powers with frickin' sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads. No good "Saturday Night Live" impressionist has ever addressed the crowd with a "I don't actually believe any of this. I really think this politician is a complete windbag!"

Will Levis gets this innately.

"He was like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to take it seriously," says Andrew Simon, the creative director who conceptualized Levis' viral "parfum de mayonnaise" commercial. "When I was on the couch and I was like, ‘Yeah, I want you to wolf down that open-face mayo sandwich to the best of your ability,’ I didn’t know what was going to happen. But he popped out to do a few pushups and then he came in and just nailed it in a few takes. That’s unbelievable."

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Never doubt the power of commitment. Within the first 10 days of the commercial's release for "Will Levis No. 8," it was viewed 37,000 times on YouTube, 88,000 times on TikTok, 330,000 times on Instagram and 2.4 million times on X, the social media platform formerly called Twitter. Every batch of "Will Levis No. 8" sold out within minutes.

Simon, who saw New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge's commercial for Polo 67, got to thinking about over-the-top, over-dramatic performances in men's fragrance ads from the likes of Johnny Depp, Matthew McConaughey, Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Pattinson. The ground was ripe for parody.

Simon had previously worked with Levis on a faux news conference commercial for Hellmann's mayonnaise before the Tennessee Titans quarterback's rookie season, building off the viral fame garnered when he stirred mayonnaise into his coffee and drank it as a college student.

He sensed Levis' talents during that shoot. He didn't give Levis a script on what questions the actors playing reporters would be asking, and just told him to answer naturally.

"That was the point where I said, ‘OK, this guy is more than just a football player. He has the ability to be an actor,' " Simon said.

The cologne ad hit the acting jackpot. Levis played sultry, seductive and provocative without ever conveying a hint of irony about coyly licking mayonnaise off his finger. Believe it or not, that bit was improvised by Levis. Simon just said, "We need you to interact with the product."

Levis said, "Like this?" and captured the moment in one take.

This was a no-joke serious production. Filming took eight hours. Simon enlisted cinematographer Steven Meizler, who worked on movies like "Saving Private Ryan" and "The Social Network" and was the cinematographer for the hit TV series "The Queen's Gambit." Levis and the crew were at the Titans' facility until midnight making sure the 30-second commercial was everything it could be.

Simon admits he was a little nervous pre-release. He thought there was a chance they were setting their sights too high with how many bottles of Will Levis No. 8 they made available for purchase. Now he says Unilever, the parent company of Hellmann's, was getting petitions from brick-and-mortar retailers to try and sell the product in stores.

And Simon says 99% of the credit for that success belongs to Levis.

"I work with a lot of athletes. They just don’t have those instincts," Simon said. "Will clearly has that ability, and also the ability to take it very seriously. He’s not laughing. Like when he did the coffee, it wasn’t like, ‘Look at this dude.’ He was committed. He was like, ‘It’s an average day, we’re going to do this thing, I’m going to eat a banana with the peel on.’

"That’s the thing where if you can keep a straight face and deliver it and intuitively you know there’s some humor in what you’re doing, that’s magic."

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Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at nsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on X, the platform formerly called Twitter, @nicksuss.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How Titans QB Will Levis' mayo cologne commercial got made