HOLLYWOOD Q&A

Q: Is it my imagination, or do I hear Tim Allen narrating the advertisements for Michigan?

A: It’s not your imagination: the voice behind the popular ad series is pure Tim Allen.

Allen has been voicing the ads for the “Pure Michigan” campaign since its launch in 2008. It wasn’t a tough decision for him — he’s a (near) lifelong Michigander, and is passionate about his beloved state getting the recognition it deserves.

“I have been here since I was 11 years old,” he told Ad Age magazine in an interview about the campaign. “I’m a big car freak and was a big Michigan booster when I was a kid. I came from Colorado, which is a nice state, but when we came here there were cars and lakes and it was just really an exciting place to be, and it never got any recognition.”

Indeed, Allen’s real passion for the state is credited as the source of the campaign’s success.

In an interview with Forbes magazine about the campaign, David West, who worked for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation when it was commissioning the ads, ranked Allen’s importance at “maybe 11, on a scale of one to 10.”

“It’s really authentic sentiment about Michigan, and you can hear it in him,” West said.

Allen is, of course, no stranger to voice work. He’s still best remembered for his on-screen role in “Home Improvement,” but his

next biggest role has probably been the voice of Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story movies.

Q: Is it true they overdubbed Bob Hoskins’ voice in “The Long Good Friday”? It sounds like his voice to me.

A: It’s not true, actually, but it almost was.

This may seem incredible, since it’s now revered as a gangster film classic, but the producers of “The Long Good Friday” (1980) were pretty sure it would be a failure and were trying to cut their losses before it was even released.

They were afraid that star Bob Hoskins’ thick, London accent would be unintelligible to other audiences, so they planned to bring in an actor with a slightly more proper accent to overdub his parts.

Hoskins was furious and sued the company to stop it. He drummed up support from some famous acting friends to back his case: Alec Guinness, Richard Burton and Warren Beatty all went on record insisting on the actor’s right to keep his voice in the film.

Ironically, this legal fight might have been the thing that got the film released. Even before the suit, the production company, ITC, had doubts about the film. Hoskins’ suit brought the attention of another company, Handmade Films (co-owned by former Beatle George Harrison), which bought the rights from ITC and released the film.