ComingSoon Senior Editor Brandon Schreur spoke to Beck Bennett about playing the Savings Whisperer for this year’s Walmart+ Week campaign. Bennett spoke about what this year’s campaign has in store for Walmart+ members, starring in James Gunn’s Superman DCU movie and potentially reprising his role as Steve Lombard in the future, his experiences on the Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Special, and more.
Walmart+ Week takes place from April 28, 2025, through May 4, 2025. Click here for more information.
Brandon Schreur: We’re here to talk about this Walmart+ campaign that’s going on. I want to start by asking, just really in general, what can you tell me about this event? What’s important for the Walmart+ members and for other people to know about it?
Beck Bennett: So it’s Walmart+ Week. It’s from April 28th until May 4th. It’s a week where, if you’re a Walmart+ member, you get additional benefits and savings in addition to the savings you get with your regular Walmart+ membership. You get even more this week. Some of the highlights are 50 percent off every gallon of gas at ExxonMobil stations, a free daily Croissan’wich or Whopper Jr., six months of Paramount+ with SHOWTIME membership, and one free express delivery, which is a delivery in two hours or less. Pretty cool stuff.
All great deals, it sounds like.
Great savings across the board. I was going over these and I was like, ‘You could enjoy these by yourself.’ But, also — I think of a certain movie, I’m blanking on it, but a character is trying to come up with the money for a date. You could take a date out with these Walmart+ savings. You could go get a sandwich. You could save on some gas. You’ve got a Paramount+ membership, so you could watch some movies.
I love it. And you’re joining the campaign as the Savings Whisperer.
Yes. I am the Savings Whisperer. I am the Walmart+ member’s guide through this week of savings. I’m there in the commercials, online, to give you all the details and encourage you about the exciting opportunities that are there. It’s a fun character. He’s very enthusiastic about the savings. He takes them very seriously and has a lot of fun bringing the news to the people in the commercials. In one of the spots, the Savings Whisperer makes a song about Walmart+ Week. I don’t want to leak it, but it’s a pretty incredible song. It’s stuck in my head all the time. It was a collaboration between Walmart, myself, and Jorma Taccone, the director. I actually did help make the song. The character says he made a song. He’s like, “I made a song!” And then he plays the song, but I also did, in real life, kind of did make the song.
Was that a hard process? Did that take a while to do?
You know, it didn’t. Walmart, they had it scripted, and then I just kind of sang something and sent it to Jorma. He put music to it. We just kind of did it for fun, to have something while we were shooting. They liked it and they used it. It’s pretty catchy.
I now cannot wait to hear it. You mentioned some of the deals that are going on with this Walmart+ Week. I don’t want to jump the gun, but are there any tips or insights that you, as the Savings Whisperer, can tell people right now about this campaign?
I would say just the savings are fantastic. The couple that I mentioned — I’m trying to think what else we’ve got. There are some Walmart Cash offers you get for being a pre-existing member. You’ve got the two sandwiches, which is my favorite, because I’m a sandwich man. And, let’s be honest, Croissan’wich or Whopper Jr. are fun names for sandwiches.
Absolutely. That right there sold me.
You get $5 Walmart Cash for members who use Scan and Go in-store. There are just a lot of fun ways to save money and make life easier and more fun. Just to go back to the Savings Whisperer, it’s fun to be part of something that’s an event, to advertise this one week as opposed to a general product or store.
I’m sure it’s probably fun to be able to lock into a character like that and play him for a certain amount of time.
Yes, it’s a thing that’s actually happening, and he’s very excited about it, so I’m excited for Walmart+ Week to come — to take advantage of these deals and, you know, do a little bit of what I’m pushing on people, but it’ll also be fun to see what the response will be and help people get into it.
Very cool. Being the Savings Whisperer isn’t the only thing you’ve got in the works, I know. One of the other things I wanted to talk to you about is I know you’re in the Superman movie that’s coming up. I know there’s probably a lot that you can’t talk about when it comes to the film, I’m not going to try to press you for details or anything like that. But is there anything you can tell me about what fans can expect from your character, Steve, in this movie?
If you know him at all from reading about him online or the comic books, he’s an adversary for Clark Kent at The Daily Planet. They work together, he’s a sports writer there. He’s kind of a little bit of an adversary for everybody. He doesn’t really have a filter. He has strong opinions. With Steve Lombard, a defining trait of him — by one of the creators or writers of the early Superman comics, he was described as ‘a run-through character.’ Where you can run him through a scene and you know you’re going to get a positive response, a fun response, or a laugh. He’s a character where, when you see him, you know what to expect, you know he’s going to be overly confident and then kind of fall flat on his face and get embarrassed. It’s really fun to play a character who is so cocky and just always ends up getting his comeuppance.
But that’s kind of what you can expect. I would say, with anything that James [Gunn] does, he took that concept of the character and made it even more fun and relatable.
I absolutely cannot wait to see it. I’m so excited. I’m curious, as far as the casting process goes, were you familiar with Steve at all from the comics? Or when you got this part, did you have to go do all kinds of research?
Yeah, I had to do research. I did not have the name of the character when I auditioned. I got the part and I still didn’t know his name. Then I finally got the parts of the script that applied to my character and my storyline, and I saw his name and was like, ‘Huh. That’s a different name that was in there before. Maybe I should look this up.’ And then I saw who he was. I was never told, like, ‘You are playing Steve Lombard, he’s been in every Superman story since the beginning’ or anything like that. I just kind of had to figure out this history of the character the lineage, I kind of found myself by looking it up on the internet. And I was pleasantly surprised. I really had no idea the context of this character. So it was really exciting to know he’s been part of the Superman story from early on.
Oh yeah. That jumps into what I was going to ask you next — after you do all this research and learn who he is, are there any nerves that come with that? The comic book fanbase is a passionate fan base and this character has been in other movies before. Are there nerves that come with bringing this guy to life or did you realize who you were playing and were all for it?
I realized who I was playing and I was all for it. This is a type of character that I love playing, but sometimes it’s hard to play because they’re not always very likable. I would try to play these characters in sketches all the time at SNL. Other people would write them for me or I would write them with people. They’d always be funny at the table read and they’d get a lot of laughs, but when that character would go up in front of an audience, sometimes the audience would feel a little uncomfortable. Like, ‘Oh, this is not a great guy and I’m laughing at him, am I supporting this type of behavior or this kind of person?’ The laughs would kind of die down and that sketch, then, would not see the light of day.
So, I’ve always enjoyed playing these kinds of characters, but to play it in the context of Superman, it’s a character that exists and then to have James Gunn writing him and be in charge of directing it — I trust him so much to get it right. And, again, I’ve been working on this type of character for a long time, I really love playing him, so it feels very at home for me.
Sure. That makes total sense. Superman is obviously going to be the first official movie in what James Gunn is doing with the DCU, along with Peter Safran. I know there’s been a number of other projects announced, but I don’t know what the future holds for Metropolis. I’m assuming we’ll come back there in some capacity, at some point. So, I’m wondering if there’s anything you can say about Steve’s future post-Superman or if this is a role you’d be open to reprising in the future.
I would love to play him again and again, yeah, definitely. And, also, just work with the creative team and the cast. Mikaela Hoover, Christopher McDonald, Skyler Gisondo, Rachel Brosnahan, and David Corenswet — it was such a fun group to work with. I know we all love being part of this. So, I don’t know, but Superman is a corner of the DC Universe and Metropolis is a corner of Superman, so I would hope that I could come up again but we’ll have to wait and see.
Totally. I’m a big Superman fan, so I’ll take all the sequels we can get.
Yeah, me too, me too.
I’m also such a fan of your work on SNL, Beck. I think I’ve probably spent hours of my life rewatching the David S. Pumpkins skit. It’s my favorite thing to ever exist. But I know you were just recently part of SNL 50, the anniversary special. Can you tell me a little bit about that experience? It was so fun to watch, how much fun were you having up there?
The most fun I’ve ever had. It was a remarkable weekend, it was so fun, it was like a dream come true. Yeah, it was just an absolute blast. It was just surreal. All these cast members, all these hosts coming back, people that I had worked with — out of nowhere, I’m just in this building, in this studio, rehearsing with them, going to these events at night, and performing in the show. I had two small parts, so there wasn’t a lot of weight on my shoulder. I could just kind of have fun with it. But I was still there and a part of it. So it was really low stress — not the stress of a regular week where you’re really hoping that your sketch gets on and you’re doing everything you can to make it work and you’re really hoping you don’t get cut. I was just there, having a blast, everyone was having so much fun, and everyone was so excited to be here. It was a dream.
Thanks to Beck Bennett for discussing this year’s Walmart+ Week campaign.
