On the YouTube clips of the Uber Eats commercial it was listed as being a Super Bowl ad. But Kelly Schumann, the River Forest native who acted in the commercial, believes it was created only to air in Australia and New Zealand.
So, for our purposes we’ll refer to it only as the Kelly Schumann ad featuring Cher.
It’s a time travel premise with the fully glammed up 78-year-old Cher wanting to “Turn Back Time” and return to the 80s.
The time travel gizmo works and Cher is next seen astride a cannon in a rural setting surrounded by peasants. “This isn’t the 80s,” she exclaims. To which a peasant with, perhaps, an Australian accent, says, “Tis the 1680s.”
That’s when Schumann arrives in the ad. She is somewhat bent, with blacked out teeth and, of course, carrying a chicken.
“That chicken peed on me all day,” Schumann told Wednesday Journal Friday. “But I kind of enjoyed the chicken. It was a distraction.” A distraction from two days of shooting on very hot California days. “It was sort of grueling,” said Schumann, mentioning both bees and dust.
Schumann was a regular for several seasons on the “Superstore” sitcom and a recurring guest on “Hot in Cleveland,” with she said, “the great Betty White,” another Oak Park native.
Of course, people want to know what Cher was like.
Schumann, who has been in L.A. since 2008, said she has an approach when encountering major stars. “I might have made this up in my head, but I try not to be a fan in front of her. We’re both there. We’re professionals. She’s been famous for a very long time. She is recognized in all she does.”
But, said Schumann, “She was great. She was super normal. She shook my hand when I introduced myself.” There is a shot of the two of them on social media.
Schumann got her start in acting at the old Circle Theater in Forest Park and sold ads for Wednesday Journal as her day job.
The past few years have been a challenge in making a living as an actor, she said. First was the COVID pandemic and then a lengthy industry strike. “This is not for the faint of heart,” she commented.
Schumann visits family regularly in town and talks with enthusiasm about growing up in these villages. “I feel so lucky to be from a place like Oak Park and River Forest. It is a place where the arts are so highly respected,” she said.
