2022 Rewind: Who Is the Hunky Bull Rider in That Liberty Mutual Commercial?
EDGE is looking back at 2022 and we're resharing some of our favorite stories of the year.
There's a funny Liberty Mutual ad featuring a hot cowboy who talks about taking chances while riding a bull and looking sexily at the camera.
"Wait. Hang on. I can't do this," he says as the camera pulls back to reveal a mechanical bull called Mild Mitch with a young girl standing by waiting to ride it.
"I'm not a real cowboy and this isn't a real bull," he says. "None of this is real. Oh. Except the savings from Liberty Mutual."
It turns out the bull is a mechanical one when the camera pulls back. "I'm not a real cowboy and this isn't a real bull," he says.
When a little girl asks "Tex" if she can get a ride on the bull, the cowboy tells her to hold on, since he's about to break his record.
In a second version of the spot, Tex starts with his spin on Liberty Mutual before riding. When the camera pulls back to reveal a young girl waiting with her arms folded to ride the bull. "Can someone else get a turn?" she asks. "Yeah. Hang on. I'm about to break my own record," he replies.
Both commercials work because the cowboy has the right mix of macho bravado and goofy humor, largely due to actor Steve Talley's on-target delivery and hunky looks.
When not riding bulls, the 31-year-old Talley has a career as a professional actor, who is best-known for playing Dwight Stifler in "American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile" and "American Pie Presents: Beta House," the fifth and sixth films in the franchise. He has also appeared in "Deadline," a film about a racially motivated murder of an African-American youth in the South.
He has also appeared on the television series "Pretty Little Liars," VH1's 90s nostalgia dramedy "Hindsight" and The CW's post-apocalyptic drama "The 100."
In a 2015 interview with the website My Fan Base, Talley said, "'Acting' is fun, but 'being an actor' is 90% mental and emotional torture."
He added that as an actor he is often asked to get outside his comfort zone. "I feel funny about it predominately from a social standpoint.You can't really get too embarrassed and still do this job, so my hang-up is that I feel stupid talking about it. Shooting the 'American Pie' movies I had to do all this outrageous stuff that's not at all my real personality. Plenty of stuff I've done is straightforward enough that it doesn't cross my mind."
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