Julie's creepy TA from 'Friday Night Lights' stars in Lowe's commercial. Have you ever been unable to disassociate actors from their characters?

I can say with the utmost certainty that never before had I been upset by a hardware superstore commercial. Shopping for paint samples is annoying, certainly. But upsetting? Rarely.

That is, until I saw a commercial for Lowe’s that involved actor Gil McKinney. Sure, in the ad he’s just a dude looking for some affordable lawn furniture with his significant other, but all I could see was the creeper T.A. from Friday Night Lights who has been corrupting our dear Julie Taylor (Aimee Teegarden, pictured here sucking face with said culprit). As soon as I recognized the actor, it was hard not to think, “How can you be buying furniture at a time like this? Don’t you know what you’re putting the Taylor family through? Have you no shame, sir?!” I’m sure Mr. McKinney is a swell fellow in real life, and it’s certainly a testament to his skills as an actor (any FNL fan can attest they got bad vibes from him immediately), but I instantly saw Derek the Creeper T.A. when I saw him. (Sadly, the commercial has not yet made its way onto YouTube yet, so you’ll just have to wait patiently to see it on the old-fashioned television. Fight the urge to rewind!)

I’ve actually had this happen before, though. As I noted in the trailer for the upcoming Mandy Moore flick Love, Wedding, Marriage, as soon as I spotted actor Michael Weston, it was jarring. This guy wasn’t Kellan Lutz’s best man, he’s the tweaked-out dude who kidnapped David in Six Feet Under! Run! Get away!

I had a roommate who couldn’t even deal with the thought of actor Tony Todd because of Candyman, so suffice to say, Chuck and 24 didn’t get much love on our DVR, even when he wasn’t playing a classic horror villain. But we can’t possibly be the only ones. I’ve got to imagine this happens quite frequently, both with character actors and mainstream actors. PopWatchers, when have you found it impossible to disassociate an actor with a former role? And did any of you think the same thoughts I did upon seeing McKinney in the Lowe’s ad?