Karen#1
Well-known member
We’ve been telling you about some new TV ads that Scientology is running in 30 countries (they say) in a big new push. So, there’s a good chance you’re going to run into one or more of them in the next few weeks if you watch football playoff games or other “event” TV, which is what Scientology likes to target.
Once again church leader David Miscavige is paying big bucks to promote Scientology, and in two of those ads he’s gone with the usual approach that he’s been relying on since he began paying for Super Bowl ads back in 2013.
Over those past 11 years, we’ve been trying to make people understand that Scientology never pays the gigantic numbers for national ad spots during the big game, but instead slots their ads in the few commercial breaks that are set aside for local advertisers. Still, it’s a pretty penny to run the ads, year after year. (You can see them all, collected in this post about 2024’s game.)
And in every single one of those Super Bowl spots since 2013, you’ve heard the same voice. A narrator talking about your natural curiosity about yourself, about being a rebel or a freethinker, about exploring the exciting merging of religion and science.
It's a “mystery sandwich” approach — the ads never actually tell you a thing about what Scientology is or what you'll be doing in it. Instead they are slick mini-movies with frenetic stock footage and a lot of hip-looking young people engaging in extreme sports and looking up in awe at Scientology buildings.
And always, that same voice.
We’ve often wondered, who is that? You can’t mistake him. It’s clearly the same guy, doing his best to sound intriguing and self-assured.
And then it dawned on us: We know exactly who can tell us who that narrator is.
Mitch Brisker is one of the most recent defectors who once held a position of high rank in Scientology. We really enjoyed the memoir Mitch published last year, and we’ve used his help in a number of different stories. He was Scientology’s film director for many years, and only left the church a few years ago, well after the Super Bowl ads had started.
So we asked him: Mitch, who is this guy we hear in the ads?
“That would be Shane Johnson,” he replied.
“I originally cast Shane in a tech film in the early 2000s. He’d met Jason Dohring in an acting class, and took a Scientology basic course or two. It never stuck. Shane has never identified as a Scientologist. I later tapped him as voiceover talent and he’s become the go-to voice of Scientology ever since.”
We weren’t familiar with the name, but that’s on us: Shane Johnson has had a very successful career as an actor, particularly playing the heavy in 50 Cent’s Power (2014-2020) and Power: Book II (2020-2024), a Starz franchise that has been one of the most-watched on cable.
Johnson was so hated in the antagonist role as a lawyer named “Cooper Saxe,” he’s given interviews about the heat he gets from fans who have a hard time separating him from the character he played.
But he’s gotten no press at all about being the voice of Scientology’s TV ads.
It’s a relief to finally put a face and name with that narration we’ve heard for so many years.
This is the guy trying to sell you on the idea of stopping by to check out Scientology.
Read more
This is the guy selling you a mystery sandwich in those Scientology TV ads
We’ve been telling you about some new TV ads that Scientology is running in 30 countries (they say) in a big new push. So, there’s a good chance you’re going to run into one or more of them in the next few weeks if you watch football playoff games or other “event” TV, which is what Scientology...
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