Billy Zane Steps Into Colonel Sanders’s Shoes For New KFC Ad

Apart fro their ridiculously perfect chicken, the one thing that is associated with KFC is their popular imagery of their founding father Colonel Sanders. A number of actors have been roped in in the past to play the role of the Colonel, but this latest addition to the list is rather unexpected, and a major blast from the past. Remember Billy Zane? No? We’ll refresh your memory a little. Remember that monster of a person in Titanic who’d go to great lengths in order to keep Jack and Rose apart? Yes, Mr. Hockley. THAT’s Billy Zane, the actor. And he’s the new face of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

From abusive fiancé to Chicken daddy, Billy Zane has come a long way. The actor will now be seen as the “Georgia Gold Colonel” in an ad spot promoting KFC’s new honey mustard barbecue-glazed chicken. Doused in stiff gold paint from head to toe and parading around in a completely golden office, Zane-as-Sanders is what billionaires’ dreams are made of. The ones with zero class, of course. Because, would you look at all that gold?!

As Eater recalls, KFC first revived the Colonel in 2015 when it appointed Saturday Night Live alum Darrell Hammond to play the part as part of an $185 million brand revamp; he was quickly succeeded by Norm Macdonald and then Jim Gaffigan, and things have gotten progressively weirder since: Mad Men’s Vincent Kartheiser (AKA the loathsome Pete Campbell) briefly stepped in, and famously tanned actor George Hamilton took a turn as the “Extra Crispy Colonel” hawking fried chicken-scented sunscreen.

Take a look at the full ad commercial below.