Tommy Lee Jones Has Been Secretly Starring in Japanese Commercials for 13 Years

May 1, 2019

An advertisement for a coffee brand in Japan had Hollywood star Tommy Lee Jones bidding an emotional sayonara to the Heisei Era.

As it turns out, the 72-year-old actor has been secretly appearing in some Japanese ads for the beverage company Suntory since 2006.

Without the rest of the world knowing, Jones has been playing the role of an alien observing human life on Earth in a series of fascinating commercials promoting the Boss canned coffee brand in Japan.

The new commercial, aired on Japanese television for one night only on April 30, was a celebration of more than a decade’s worth of his stint as the enigmatic Alien Jones.

In the new ad titled “Alien Jones: Heisei Special,” Jones’ character went on a nostalgic trip revisiting the locations of previous commercials.

Watch the full ad below:

According to Soranews24, the epic two-minute special also served as a dramatic farewell marking the last day of the thirty-year-long Heisei period.

The ad opened with Jones’ 2011 Boss commercial, with him playing the role of a station attendant observing a couple parting and another meeting on a station platform.

The sequence, which illustrated the “cycle of meetings and farewells,” then moved on to other clips taken from his ads over the years, before ending with a montage of some of his best appearances.

“It’s not easy to know what type of era was created over the past thirty years, but one thing I can say is that people worked hard in the Heisei era,” Jones’ character narrated in the end.

During the historic end of Heisei, Japan’s Emperor Akihito has also begun the preparation to step down from the Chrysanthemum Throne. The start of the new Reiwa era begins as the Emperor hands the role over to his eldest son, the Crown Prince Naruhito on May 1.

Featured image via YouTube/サントリー公式チャンネル（SUNTORY）

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