Who Is The MCU Star In Amazon's Back-To-School Commercial & Why Does He Look Familiar?

With inflation on the rise and budgets shrinking everywhere, the back-to-school season may be a lot more stressful for some families. Thankfully, Amazon is here to provide a bit of levity during these troubling economic times with a new set of light-hearted commercials featuring a familiar face. 

Amazon's Spend Less campaign highlights the array of back-to-school deals across the company's site. They are hoping to stand out from other advertisers by relating more to cash-strapped families, with Amazon executive worldwide creative director Jo Shoesmith telling Marketing Dive, "Back-to-school advertising is all smiling kids, bright colors and happy music. But no one talks about the elephant in the classroom: Back-to-school season is an annual reminder of how incredibly expensive it is to raise children. That's especially true in this age of steep inflation, when it's hard to afford eggs, much less backpacks." Despite the bluntness with which Amazon is approaching the conversation, there's still room for fun.

The campaign includes two commercials starring actor Randall Park and directed by "Peacemaker" and "The Righteous Gemstones" director Jody Hill. The first, titled "Spend Less on your Kids," sees Park on an active school campus promoting the titular concept as several families agree with him, with one girl even deeming the idea "fiscally advantageous." In the second spot, "Makes Cents," Park and a teenage student have an awkward interaction after she says "makes sense," which Park confuses as "makes cents" in regard to Amazon's back-to-school savings. 

The ads are direct and appropriately tongue-in-cheek, in large part due to Park's charming energy. Of course, this is far from the only place you can see his talents in action. 

Following numerous small roles in TV shows, short films, and commercials, Randall Park's career began to take off with the political satire series "Veep." The show follows the political and personal life of fictional U.S. Vice President Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Park portrays fictional Minnesota governor Danny Chung in the series.

With a celebrated career serving in the Iraq War and a charming personality to boot, Chung is a highly regarded individual in the world of politics. His career as governor was widely applauded and many saw him as a likely candidate for presidency. Chung would eventually attempt to run for office during the 2016 election. He ran strong for some time, with candidates who dropped out even endorsing him. The race ultimately came down to him, Meyer, and Joe Thornhill (Glenn Wrage), with Chung eventually dropping out in spring 2016. 

While Park didn't see his role in "Veep" as his breakthrough part, getting on the show was nevertheless a validating step in his early career, telling the Independent, "I think it was during that where I was like, 'Oh, I think I'm going to be OK.'" Park appeared in 13 episodes across six seasons of the multi-Emmy-winning series. 

2014 gave Randall Park his first real big-screen break with a key role in another political satire — the Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg-directed black comedy "The Interview." His role was that of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, who is set to be interviewed by two American reporters who are later tasked by the CIA to assassinate him. 

Park was excited when he received the role following a successful audition, going so far as to gain 20 pounds for the part. However, things took an unexpected turn when the North Korean government deemed the film an act of terrorism and threatened action should it be released. Following further threats including a mysterious hack of Sony's computer networks, the film's worldwide theatrical release was canceled. It was a crushing blow to Park, whose performance was already garnering praise leading up to the release. "It was kind of heartbreaking for me," the actor told the Independent. "Because while 'The Interview' was being edited, it was being tested to audiences. And ... all I heard was how great I was in the movie and 'how high you were testing' and 'how this is going to be a huge deal for you'."

The movie's online and limited theatrical release was met with middling reviews. However, Park's performance received praise from such outlets as Variety, which stated, "Park ('Veep,' 'Neighbors') plays the role with an infantile glee that gives his scenes more kick than they deserve."

Randall Park's most prolific television role to date came in 2015 when he was set to lead the ABC sitcom "Fresh Off the Boat." The show, based loosely on food personality Eddie Huang's 2013 autobiography "Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir," chronicles the life of a Taiwanese-American family that relocates to Florida in the mid-1990s to start a new life for themselves. Park stars as Louis Huang, a loving father who opens the cowboy-themed steakhouse Cattleman's Ranch.

Over the show's six seasons and 116 episode run, "Fresh Off the Boat" was championed for its representation of Asian Americans, being the first major network sitcom to feature a predominantly Asian American cast since 1994's "All-American Girl." For its efforts, the show received numerous accolades, including two best acting nominations for Park from the Critics Choice Television Awards. However, what ultimately mattered to Park was what "Fresh Off the Boat" was able to prove to television networks in a time of burgeoning representation efforts across the entertainment field. "One of the things it did was prove to the industry that people, and not just Asian Americans but all people across all different communities, will watch an Asian family on screen," Park told the Independent. "It did that."

With a rapidly growing presence within the entertainment industry, it was only a matter of time before Randall Park found himself in blockbuster movie territory. It would be until 2018 when Park got that opportunity, joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe as James E. "Jimmy" Woo. 

The former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent was first introduced in 2018's "Ant-Man and the Wasp" where he works as an FBI agent. Following Scott Lang's (Paul Rudd) violation of the Sokvia Accords in "Captain America: Civil War," Woo was assigned as Lang's parole officer. Lang manages to outwit Woo and his team on numerous occasions, although Woo states he'll be keeping his eye on him. In "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania," the two appear to have grown as friends, in large part due to Lang's newfound public perception as a hero thanks to his part in helping take down Thanos.  

Woo also appeared in the MCU's first Disney + TV series "WandaVision." Here, he worked alongside Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) and SWORD captain Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) to investigate the Westview anomaly caused by Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen). Not wanting to follow Tyler Hayward's (Josh Stamberg) malicious plans to take out Wanda, the party goes rogue in an attempt to solve the dilemma peacefully. 

Woo will be working alongside Rambeau once again in this year's upcoming "The Marvels." It's also worth noting that his actor has also starred in the DC Extended Universe as Dr. Stephen Shin in both 2018's "Aquaman" and its upcoming sequel "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom."

Randall Park has accomplished quite a lot since his early days in the industry, from leading groundbreaking television shows to joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But while the 2019 romantic comedy "Always Be My Maybe" may not carry the weight of some of Park's other projects, it nevertheless proved to be a nostalgic trip down memory lane for the performer. 

The film follows childhood friends Marcus Kim (Park) and Sasha Tran (Ali Wong), who run into each other years after an awkward relationship during their teen years. They slowly develop feelings for one another, but their contrasting lives and ambitions birth a difficult situation. In real life, Park and Wong had been friends since the late 1990s while part of an Asian American performance group at UCLA. Over the years, the two remained friends and developed what they deemed their version of "When Harry Met Sally." The project proved to be a creatively fulfilling one for Park, who also co-wrote and co-produced the film, with the hands-on process reminding him of their undergrad days. As he described to the Independent, "We wrote our own material, we performed it. If we wanted to write music, we'd write music for it."

The delightful experience of making "Always Be My Maybe" was matched by its response. The film currently holds an 89% Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes and Park's original song "I Punched Keanu Reeves" not only became a Spotify hit but even won a best original song award from the Chicago Indie Critics Awards.