On Wednesday December 2nd at Gansevoort Park Avenue, NYC Pepsi hosted a viewing party of the fall finale of EMPIRE with star of the series, Jussie Smollett. Fans were first introduced to the Pepsi and EMPIRE partnership after last week’s episode where Jussie’s character, Jamal, was asked by Pepsi to develop a new song, and be the brand’s next fresh face. As part of the partnership, Jamal gets to film a commercial for Pepsi – on the show and in reality.
MTV’s Sway Calloway kicked off the night with a panel discussion with Jussie Smollett, Pepsi’s Senior Marketing Director Lou Arbetter and FOX/EMPIRE Executive Producer and Director Sanaa Hamri. Singer Kelly Rowland was also in attendance. A private screening of the fall finale followed and included the premiere of the Pepsi commercial directed by Lee Daniels. Jussie shared with the audience how much it meant to him to be the next Pepsi artist, both on the show and in real life. Following the episode, Jussie wowed the audience with an intimate performance featuring a few of his songs including “Ready to Go,” which is produced by Swizz Beats and featured in his Pepsi commercial.
Check out our highlights of our exclusive coverage of the panel discussion:
Sway: Man it has been an incredible year for you, watching you grow, watching the show grow. You becoming Pepsi’s newest artist. What were you thinking when you actually found out that this was at your doorstep?
Jussie: Lee Daniels, father Lee brought me into his office and he held my hand. I felt he was being so weird. I wondered if I did a bad job during the table read. He sat me down and said he needed to talk to me. I made a joke saying, “am I being fired?” Because no one is safe on Empire. He was really silence and said “well you’re not getting fired but we want you to take a sabbatical” And I was thinking ok, should I try and let them get me to read for The Wiz Live! And then I asked “How long?” and then Lee said “Stupid bitch, we’re not putting you on sabbatical.” And then he said “you are the new face of Pepsi” and then he went on to explain that it will be a thing that will be integrated into the show. Jamal will have a deal with Pepsi on the show and I will have a deal and be the face with Pepsi in real life. All I could think of was Michael Jackson and my mind went right there. Growing up people asked me what I wanted to be. I swear on my life, you can ask my mother- I would say I wanted to be He-Man, Michael Jackson or Kermit the Frog. All three of them, their lives were so dope. I’m so humble to be doing anything that remotely, anything that the King as had something to do with.
Sway: What was like for you filming this commercial for Jamal?
Lou: Well, it wasn’t a commercial, it was the storyline. The first time we did it, it was an interesting process for me because it felt almost docu-style, like we are filming what really happens and then there was the performance to the Pepsi song. One of favorite moments about this was we were able to take the “Ready to Go” song and deconstruct it. There was Cookie’s version and Lucious’s version. The song is the marriage of both of them. That is what Jamal through the guidance of his brother, Hakeem ended up doing. I think that’s such a beautiful way of telling the story. It also tells the audience of how things are created. Even behind the scenes, we had to deconstruct the song with Swizz and we had different tempos. It felt very true, I felt like I was living a behind the scenes and I just had to capture it at that point and really show the moment. When you see when Lucious and Cookie realize Jamal got the song and hug him, it feels real and he’s the new face. When you watch the finale you see there’s more to this and we keep carrying the story. As a director and producer, I enjoy always being authentic to what is real.
