A taxi driver put me up to the idea.
I was in LA and
he started telling me about how much money he was making on the side as a “background
artist”, as “extras” are now called – or “supporting artist”, as seems to be the
case in the UK. “Relatively superfluous to requirements” would be a more
accurate description as far as I can see, but who am I to take away a minion’s
moment in the sun (well, the shade out of the sun’s rays).
He said the
first step was to sign up to a casting agency and so, now in possession of my
Green Card, when I returned to New York I decided to do exactly that.
I won’t name
the agency for reasons that will become apparent, but let’s call them Muppet Casting,
only because the people in the waiting room mostly looked as if they had just
walked off that show and were awaiting their next gig on Fraggle Rock.
Never have I
seen such an assortment of shapes and sizes gathered in one room; I thought I
had walked into a Hall of Mirrors. It’s not often I’m the slimmest, youngest and,
dare I say it, the most attractive person in the room (in fact, never), but I
was nailing this. One woman was so enormous, she lost her clipboard in the
folds of her stomach; there were at least three serial killers (the real kind,
not the actor possibilities); and one woman was stuffing so many crisps into
her mouth, if she were auditioning for a Walker’s commercial the director would
live in fear of losing the product by the end of the shoot.
Then there were the
stupid people, who hadn’t brought any ID with them, despite having been
specifically told to do so and were quickly shown the door.
The
form-filling was incredibly tedious and very complicated, not to mention long.
At the end of this torture, officiated over by a woman who could not have been
less enthusiastic had she been playing a corpse, it was time for the photos.
That took forever, too. I swear I had two birthdays during the course of the
afternoon. Then, before you can do any work, you have to complete the online
anti-harassment course – and there’s no escaping it. At least it paid $15.
In essence:
don’t make unwanted advances; don’t persist on pursuing someone when they’ve
made it clear they don’t want you; and don’t grope anyone.
That would pretty
much wipe out the Nineties for me.
Now, this is
how the system works. You get a text asking for your availability and you
answer YES or NO. My first job – “woman in blue coat” came through pretty
quickly, but I missed out on it.
What was
wrong with me, I wondered? Did they think blue was not my colour? Maybe the
coat was too big? Maybe I was too fat for it. I had already dismissed my
chances of being a “concentration camp survivor” I saw advertised online; I was
overweight by about five stone.
I pondered applying anyway, arguing that if I
had survived, maybe I’d managed to wolf down a few hearty Big Macs, but thought
that if groping was politically incorrect, trying to wangle my way into a
Holocaust production by devious means was definitely a no-go area.
And so, to
the next job. It was a major show on Netflix (I can’t say which one because I
am bound by confidentiality) and they were looking for people for a crowd scene.
My YES resulted in a positive response and my booking was confirmed the day
before shooting.
Then the
problems started. I would not receive the details until after 9pm, when I had
to click on the link and key in the code I had been given (and they also tell
you to check in again in the morning, should anything have changed).
A voice at
the other end rattled off a number of addresses – 5th Avenue, East
102nd (that’s practically Canada, for those of you who don’t know
Manhattan streets), 92nd . . . there were instructions for gates,
groups, individuals. I listened to it a dozen times and was still none the wiser,
so had to call the “urgent” number to confirm my details.
My call time
was 6.48am on East 102nd Street. I live on West 45th
Street. WEST. I never go to the East side unless there is free beer. Here, I
was told, there was going to be no refreshment whatsoever; it was a “walkaway
lunch” for which I would have to bring money or my own grub.
I presume that’s
because I’m non-Union, because I know that SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild-American
Federation of Television and Radio Artists) extras (I’m still going to stick to
the shorthand term) put on at least ten pounds a day on every shoot. Last week,
there was a violent fight at a food truck on set and the police were called.
But really,
NO LUNCH? Apart from free food, there is no other upside to the job. It’s a
nine-hour day for minimum wage, on which you are taxed at source, you have to
pay your costs of getting there and back, and for what? To mingle amongst the
muppets.
I told them I
wouldn’t be able to make it after all as I could never make the venue by
6.48am. She tried to
negotiate.
“I’ll tell them you’ll be late.”
“Ok, how
about 8.15?”
“Could you do
7.15?”
“This really
isn’t going to work for me. I’m so sorry.”
She got
really huffy with me.
“Well make sure you DON’T turn up tomorrow.”
“I WON’T!”
My Background
to the Future career has not begun well; I’m just not ready for my non-close-up.
Heck, I was Top Extra in Kenneth Branagh’s Frankenstein (you can read about
that in the blog How to Be in Commercials in America, by the way); this already
felt like a real comedown.
Don’t they know who I am?
