What Happened To The Guy From Verizon's 'Can You Hear Me Now?' Commercials?
Anybody who remembers watching cable TV in the 2000s will likely recall a Verizon commercial campaign in which a man sporting thick-framed glasses repeatedly asks, "Can you hear me now?" in unlikely locations. Each time he follows up with a brief "Good," smiling and indicating that his Verizon service is still working no matter where he ends up.
According to an Atlantic profile of Paul Marcarelli — the name of the actor who plays the "Can you hear me now?" guy — he started acting in Verizon commercials in 2001 and stopped taking regular work for the cell phone service provider around 2010. By that point, he had started making a concerted effort to wear glasses with thinner frames to distance himself from the iconic TV commercial character.
He wasn't done pitching cell phone services for good, however. In 2016, Sprint debuted a commercial titled "Paul Switched." Its entire premise hinges on the fact that viewers probably remember Marcarelli — back in his thick-framed glasses — from his Verizon campaign. As the ad hopes Verizon customers might do too, he made the switch to Sprint. On YouTube alone, the commercial has amassed more than 14 million views as of this writing. Marcarelli stuck with the company moving forward, remaining a Sprint spokesperson for the next few years.
Nowadays, Paul Marcarelli splits his time between Hollywood and his farm
Around the time that Paul Marcarelli quit pitching for Verizon, he began working semi-regularly as a producer starting with a 2011 film titled "The Green." It stars Jason Butler Harner — who would go on to play Agent Petty on "Ozark," a character that fans love to hate. In 2023, he produced a short film titled "Pretty Doesn't Hurt" starring Keeley Karsten, who plays Natalie Fabelman in the modern Steven Spielberg classic "The Fabelmans." Marcarelli occasionally acts too, showing up in a 2017 Jennifer Lopez music video and a 2011 episode of a web series titled "The Basics."
In October of 2023, Marcarelli shared a digital version of an interview conducted with a magazine called The Mountains to his personal Instagram account. In it, he details how he lives on a large farm in Litchfield, Connecticut, with his husband, who works as a chef. Together, they tend to a large garden on a 14-acre property. Marcarelli isn't just a farm guy, though, as he's still interested in acting. After the SAG-AFTRA strike concludes, he plans on continuing to audition for commercials, video games, cartoons, and voiceover work. For what it's worth, based on the photo above, he appears to be sporting his thick-framed glasses in his personal life as well.
Marcarelli worked with a huge TV star before his rise to fame
Paul Marcarelli had a pretty long career in commercials — so it's not a total surprise that he's worked with some pretty big stars along the way. According to one of Marcarelli's Instagram posts, one of those stars is none other than recently minted Emmy winner Jeremy Allen White.
In January 2024, Marcarelli posted two photos that appear to be of an old Verizon commercial featuring both him and White with the caption, "That time I did some intense scene work with a teenage [Jeremy Allen White]." While it's tough to locate one specific Verizon commercial featuring a then-unknown White, it certainly seems legitimate and is an amusing footnote for Marcarelli considering White's recent success.
White, of course, stars on Hulu's hit original series "The Bear" as Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto, a skilled chef who returns to his hometown of Chicago to help run his family's sandwich shop after the death of his brother. The show aired its 2nd season in the summer of 2023 and became an immediate success, earning awards and acclaim for White and his co-stars (including his on-screen right-hand woman, Ayo Edebiri, who won a Golden Globe and an Emmy for her role as well). It's pretty excellent that Mascarelli got to work with White before he became such an enormous star.