Terry Crews On His Hilarious New Call Of Duty: Black Ops 7 Campaign

Terry Crews has returned to the world of video games with a new ad campaign for Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and its creation was both “secretive” and very collaborative. The football player-turned-actor previously made his debut in the video game genre with the adaptation of The Expendables 2, following it up with Saints Row IV as former Vice Kings leader Benjamin King, taking over the role from Michael Clarke Duncan after his death, and 2019’s Crackdown 3.

Crews is teaming up with Activision for their latest series of Replacer commercials to promote Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. Originally introduced as being played by Until Dawn‘s Peter Stormare, the Replacers are actors who humorously take over daily jobs from a variety of people in their desire to focus on playing the latest of the first-person shooter franchise. Thus far, Crews has starred in three different ads for the latest Call of Duty, working alongside Stormare and fellow new Replacer, Golden Globe and Emmy nominee Nikki Glaser.

In honor of the ongoing campaign and the new title’s release, ScreenRant interviewed Terry Crews to discuss his Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 Replacer series. The star reflected on the multi-year journey to shoot his ads, including how secretive they were in the development process, while also praising the collaborative flow of putting them together and getting to work with Glaser and Stormare on the bunch.

Crews Loves How His Replacer Campaign Pushes The Envelope Of Gaming Marketing

Crews’ journey to help promote Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has taken place over the course of multiple years, beginning with the star attending the red carpet premiere of John Wick: Chapter 4. Humorously recalling how he nearly skipped out on the premiere, to instead save watching the Keanu Reeves sequel at another time in theaters, he denoted the importance of the premieres as “the connections that you need to make” are in attendance, including someone working on the latest Black Ops that told him “we’ve got to find a way to get you involved“.

“First of all, I love video games,” Crews expressed. “I’m not allowed to do it as much as I want to, which is kind of perfect. That’s the irony of me being a Replacer, because I need one if I want to play the game, you know? But I also have been a fan of Peter Stormare his whole career. The fact that he has been the Replacer for so long? I remember seeing him on the cover of People Magazine, in all the ads and stuff. I was just like, ‘Dude, he’s the perfect guy.’”

Crews went on to share that it “was wild it took this long“, with his proper conversation to join the Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 marketing coming from a “text out of the blue” telling him it was time. “It really felt very secretive,” the actor shared. “They sent over the creative briefs, and I was in, 100%. To me, it’s about creativity.“

Beyond the initial material sent for the current Replacer ads, Crews praised Activision and their team for wanting to push the envelope with their Call of Duty ads, comparing them favorably to his tenure with the energetic and comedic Old Spice commercials. Finding it more engaging to have “created this whole story about people replacing those who want to play” the latest Call of Duty instead of just “throwing gameplay out there“, it’s made something that “Love it or hate it, you don’t forget it“.

Crews Encouraged Nikki Glaser To Go As Far As She Wanted With Her Character

In addition to Stormare’s return, the new Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 ads welcome Nikki Glaser to the realm of Replacers, with her character often being the straight-faced opposite to Crews’ more chaotic counterpart. Describing working with the Emmy nominee as being “so much fun” and expressing his excitement for her “blowing up on every platform“, Crews said that their dynamic was “extremely collaborative“, with the production also allowing the two room to play.

“First of all, I knew what I was there for when I saw how they read it,” Crews acknowledged. “What’s so cool is they know. They know my wheelhouse; they know where I’m at. So it was really cool working with people who understood how I like to do things.“

While he may be best known for his outlandish characters, Crews mixes things up this time around, going from a squeamish innocent in “Crime Scene” to an overly excited party-goer in “Gender Reveal” and a matter-of-fact coffee seller in “Baristas”. However, across the ads released thus far, Glaser proves to be the one who dominates in her hilariously blunt character, and Crews says he had a part in advocating for that.

“I wanted Nikki to be in control,” Crews said. “She’s the boss, and I’m a little underling. There was one scene where we pick up the phone, and she’s like, ‘Get your s–t together’. She was really hesitant, but I told her, ‘Smack me.’ She was like, ‘I can’t, I can’t!’ I said, ‘Listen, just haul off. Smack me. It’ll be on the shot. It’ll be over.’ But this is what I would need, you know? Knowing how nervous my character was, I knew I would need a smack. And she did it!“

Laughing as he recalls Glaser immediately began apologizing profusely for smacking him, part of her being “a sweetheart“, Crews praised it as playing “so well in the ad“. He also went on to express that the Replacer ads, and his and Glaser’s work on them, is a return to “real comedy“, as the actor feels it’s “very, very rare” to find something purely funny the way it used to be.

Pointing out how “you have to go back to the ’90s and ’00s to find a comedy“, Crews explained that certain films, TV shows and advertising only offer “doses” of laughter. While proud to be part of said return to a more classic style of comedy, he lamented that “there are not a lot of sitcoms out there” and is “hoping for a comeback of humor and fun“.

That’s why, when I saw the creative vision for this campaign, I jumped at the chance. The story is yes, it’s never no. It’s, “Let’s see how far we can take it.” We had a lot of jokes that didn’t make it, but it was like a whole cornucopia of fun. They just picked the best stuff.

Crews Is Looking Forward To Getting Some Gaming In With His Son Over The Holidays

Faye’s Vision/Cover Images

Expressing his excitement at getting to be part of something “iconic” with the Call of Duty franchise, even pointing out the new Replacer ads’ usage of Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “Shimmy Shimmy Ya”, Crews really relished his son Isaiah’s reaction to learning of his dad being part of the Black Ops 7 marketing. “My son is 20, and he grew up on it,” Crews said warmly. “When I told him I was going to do this campaign, I saw the admiration in his eyes; his pupils dilated. I might be my son’s favorite person right now.“

Looking to the near future, the actor eagerly shared plans for him and his son to get some time together over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday seasons to play Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 together. This has even extended to Crews retrofitting an “LED wall studio that I have had for a number of years” in his house, turning it from a virtual production studio he used during the pandemic to a complete gaming studio for his son and his friends.

“We have this giant screen, and we’ve got the Xbox and PlayStation consoles,” Crews described. “We can get a PC in there and really invite people so we can play games on Twitch and play games on YouTube. The whole thing, man, because this world is just getting better and better. Another thing is that I would love to sponsor other gamers. I saw Howie Mandel has a gaming team. I want to get two or three really great gamers, along with my son, and we can start something. We can have some fun, just do it, and see what happens. I’m embracing this world 100%.“

Recalling his time with the Crackdown franchise in its 2019 threequel, Crews shared that the world of video games “never left me“, but laments that his busy schedule makes it hard to keep up with the modern gaming sphere. Between the likes of Call of Duty, Madden and many other competitive titles, the actor admits “you literally have to do it 24/7 to get good“, which he can’t do when he’s working on everything from America’s Got Talent to flying overseas for the likes of The Killer’s Game.

Describing the holidays as being “the perfect time” to invest in improving one’s gaming skills, Crews excitedly looked ahead to getting “four or five days to just hang out and try all the games” with his family. Even more so, however, is he’s looking forward to “watching my son play” his games, explaining that he enjoys “watching him go through the stories” and being right alongside him. This also proves a bit troublesome for the Brooklyn Nine-Nine alum as his son enjoys a specific genre of games:

He likes playing a lot of scary games, so it’s always like going into a horror movie. But I like to watch him do his thing. I’m from the Intellivision world, and the Atari 5200 days. When I look at the graphics now, and I look at how far they’re going? It’s insane. When you think about Nvidia and AI, it feels like it’s going to be almost indistinguishable from real life within the next five years.

Be sure to dive into our other major Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 coverage with:

Systems

Released

November 14, 2025

ESRB

Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Drugs

Developer(s)

Treyarch, Raven Software

Engine

IW Engine

Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op