My Life as an Extra
11 July 2010
It’s a hard, undeniable fact of life, and one that is crucial to accept in reaching a mature understanding of oneself: Most of us are not going to make it as film stars. For that matter, the majority of us will be lucky to get a walk-on part in a low-budget straight-to-video remake of a story about someone else’s run-of-the-mill existence. It is wise to accept such things. So, a few months ago, I decided to finally discard all vain ambitions and become an ‘extra.’ I signed up with an agency and hoped to get paid £50 a day for being one of a hundred standing around in period costume in the rain while eight hundred yards away the lead actors kissed in close-up before the camera. The polite term for extras these days is ‘background artist.’ Signing up with an agency is easy but surreal. The most important thing is your photo, as a casting directors pick you, not on your knowledge of Ingmar Bergman - but on the shape of your nose. But then there’s awkward questions like : Hair style? And - Body type? ‘Bohemian’ and ‘scrawny’ were not among my available tick boxes. Then the whole CV thing had me flumuxed. The truth was I was hiding the fact that I had rather a lot of experience working in TV, but on the wrong side of the camera – as a director. Why would a control-freak Hitchcock-type want to be an extra? Had my life hit rock bottom? A mid-life crisis? Truth was, yes, my career as a director did bomb about five years before and I was nostalgic for being on-set. In the box under the question of TV experience I ticked ‘Some.’ A few weeks later, I was thrilled get my first job offer - A 19th century period drama. I was given a time and address for a costume fitting. I located and entered a vast warehouse and said my hellos to the dozen or so other waiting extras; mostly men in their late forties. One stank of cigarettes, another was an incurable chatterbox. There was a twenty-something girl there reading a magazine and all the men, excluding my good self, kept ogling her. Chatterbox was trying to impress the girl with his extensive walk-on experience, listing his many TV appearances – River city, Taggart, an advert for the Rubik’s cube. I couldn’t help but meditate, during the long wait, that this was the tragedy of extras – Pushing fifty they’re still waiting to be spotted and hit the big-time. When I heard chatterbox recount the last of his CV, I froze. ‘A staff training video on the evacuation procedures at Glasgow Airport.’ Unfortunately, at a particular low-point in my career, I had directed the unfortunately titled, ‘Evacuate.’ I recalled that I had been under extreme pressure at the time and had been spectacularly rude to as many as a hundred extras, shouting at them with a loud hailer. ‘You, the fat on -You’re running the wrong way!’ ‘Hey baldy-guy, try to act natural!’ I feared that chatterbox would recognise me and that the truth would be … evacuated. So that was what I did - I turned and walked swiftly to the nearest exit, and walked swiftly away from the building to safety. The agency never called me back. To fail at being a film star is understandable. But to fail at being an extra! Such is my fate.
1 comment
Written by Rebecca on 24 November 2010 at 17:15:00
Which agency did you use?