How Unscripted Are Those Kids’ Responses In The AT&T Ads?

attkids2We’ve certainly made no attempt to hide our distaste with some of AT&T’s business practices, but we are all stupidly charmed by those seemingly improvised AT&T ads in which youngsters in a classroom respond to questions like “Who thinks more is better than less?” But considering how amusing some of these ads can be, we’ve been curious about just how scripted those kids’ replies are.

In an interview with E!, the lone adult in the ads, actor Beck Bennett (who, judging by the name, may be a Marvel superhero) reveals the truth.

“It’s pretty much all improvised,” he explains. “They start with the basic questions — bigger or smaller, faster or slower… all these different things — so each one of those principals has a script just in case… You want to have a safety in case these kids don’t say something fun and interesting, but they always do.”

“It’s kind of like guided improv,” adds Bennett. “We can see that they’re on track with an idea, and maybe they don’t understand where it could go… we push them a little bit further and they open up more and more and more and say some great stuff.”

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