Not a lot of commercials create a buzz, but the new “Pepsi MAX & Kyrie Irving Present: Uncle Drew Chapter 3” has had it for weeks. The series where Irving plays Uncle Drew, an old baller getting his team back together, going out to a park and schooling the “kids” is just classic. If in part because we’ve all been schooled by the old guy at pickup before and this just takes it to the next level.
Denver’s Nate Robinson is in the series now, too, and said this is about as much fun to film as it looks like.
“It was unbelievable,” Robinson told ProBasketballTalk. “It was a very humbling experience, I’m just glad I got the chance to team up with one of the best point guards in the game right now in Kyrie Irving as Uncle Drew, Mr. AKA Get Buckets.”
Robinson plays “Lights” Jenkins, one of Drew’s old teammates turned jazz musician.
“My name manifests by every time I get in the gym I’m shooting lights out,” Robinson said, sounding a lot like the Nate Robinson fans love to watch play because he is fearless about going up with it (the same Robinson that can make coaches cringe for the exact same reason).
As he told PBT, “I only know how to be Nate Robinson.”
Which is why he kind of got bit by the acting bug getting to dress up and play someone else.
“The fun part was playing and being in costume and being another person you can be, like you’re really acting,” Robinson said. “So I kind of felt like Eddie Murphy and Tyler Perry and Martin Lawrence as ‘Big Mama.’ I just really felt a real character.”
If you’re wondering, that is supposed to be his sister is Betty Lou Jenkins, who is played by WNBA MVP Maya Moore.
So how long did it take to get into all that makeup? Robinson said he showed up at noon to start the makeup, they couldn’t start shooting until it was well into the evening at the Chicago park, after closer to 11, and they didn’t finish the commercial until about 4 a.m.
It may have been a lot of work, but you have to love the product. Pepsi MAX & Kyrie Irving Present: Uncle Drew Chapter 3 lives up to the rest of the series.
(Check back with PBT later today for more from Robinson, talking about his career, bouncing around the league and the Nuggets this season.)
