Not strictly commercial

JUSTIN LONG has about an hour and a half before he has to drive from Santa Monica to Burbank to shoot some footage for the website of his upcoming movie "Accepted." And though the hip and trendy Urth Caffe on Main Street does have awesome soup, and he is very into soup, the line is prohibitively long so he suggests Mani's Bakery, which is just a few doors down, as an alternative.

There he does indeed order the soup, some of which he actually eats while discussing the events that led to him having a half-dozen films in various stages of postproduction while, even as we speak, his pop icon status grows with every "Get a Mac" TV spot released by Apple.

"If I had been egotistical about the movies, I have been brought back to earth," he says. "Nine out of 10 people who recognize me recognize me from the commercials."

Although he is currently playing in theaters near you as Jennifer Aniston's gallery co-worker in "The Break-Up," Long was previously best known for his role in the TV series "Ed" (unless you are a horror fan and then it would be "Jeepers Creepers"). But now, as he prepares to ratchet up his film career (two of his movies, strangely enough, deal with Bigfoot -- "What are the odds," he says with a laugh), he is fending off computer geeks who either find his Mac guy righteous or maddening.

"I had a guy come up to me, in my face, saying, 'You think you're so cool? You're not cool' and I'm saying to him, 'Dude, it's a commercial.' "

There have been seven spots so far with Long playing the slacker-hip Mac guy to John Hodgman's nerdy PC guy and there are almost 20 more in the can, guaranteeing that what is currently the hottest campaign on TV can last as long as the heat does.

"It's not even a good story," he says of how he came to embody a computer-obsessed demographic. "I got a call from my agent about it and at first I was very wary. I was in this false arrogance, deluding myself that I was beyond that -- 'I'm doing movies.' " He laughs sheepishly. "Seriously. I thought that. But I grew up in a house where my mom was a commercial actress; she made a living making commercials, so I recognize the value of them."

He learned that Phil Morrison was going to direct the spots, and that swayed him. "I loved 'Junebug,' " he says of the indie director's film. "It was one of my favorite films, my favorite type of film. And he wanted it to be very uncommercial so I said, 'Yeah.' "