\n\tVincent. Anthony. Vaughn. He\u2019s in the game.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Wedding Crashers star\u2019s latest gig is an especially fun and serendipitous role: Vaughn is the \u201cvoice and hero\u201d of the Madden NFL 27<\/a> ad campaign. And the guy who once \u201cwent from the third team to the prep team<\/a>\u201d as Jamie O\u2019Hare in Rudy (1993) perfectly quarterbacks the commercial.<\/p>\n \n\tMadden, EA Sports<\/a>\u2018 signature video game, filmed this year\u2019s ad at Halas Hall in Lake Forest, Ill., where Vaughn grew up and the Chicago Bears practice. (The NFC North team plays their home games 40 miles south at Soldier Field in Chicago.)<\/p>\n \n\tVaughn is not only a big Bears fan, he\u2019s a big Madden fan as well. To align the two, Vaughn was only needed for a day \u2014 albeit \u201ca big, long, full shoot day,\u201d he tells The Hollywood Reporter.<\/p>\n \n\tThe result, a four-minute reveal trailer that will be posted in full on YouTube and dissected into 15- and 30-second increments for more traditional TV and streaming ads, is one of the best video game commercials since \u201cGenesis Does What Nintendon\u2019t\u201d<\/a> (1990), Nintendo\u2019s Super Smash Bros. television spot<\/a> (1999), or the entire movie<\/a> The Wizard (1989) starring Fred Savage. For the \u201cIt\u2019s Your League\u201d spot, its pitchman is in pitch-perfect Vaughn mode, and Caleb Williams, the Bears QB and Madden NFL 27 cover athlete, is one hell of a backup.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWhat I liked about it is\u2014 I think we all kind of immerse ourselves in building the team and kind of creating the craziness. You are the GM, and you are the owner, and you can be the player, and you are the coach,\u201d Vaughn said. \u201cLeaning into that felt\u2014 in and of itself it was a fun idea, but it\u2019s not far off, I think, from as gamers and sports fans how we approach doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tVaughn can speak for the rest of us, because he\u2019s had more late Madden nights than most, whether that be back in the day or more recently in his kids\u2019 treehouse. And though this marks Vaughn\u2019s first official collab with EA, he\u2019s acted (literally) as perhaps their best unofficial pitchman outside of Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins.<\/p>\n