40 Movie And TV Extras Share What It's Really Like On Set
Almost everyone has dreamed about being a movie star. But when superstardom is out of reach, being an extra is basically the next best thing. As these fascinating stories from behind the scenes prove, though, being in the film business isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. From exhaustion and overheating to public screaming matches, here are 40 remarkable tales told by the background actors in your favorite flicks...
40. Extra-long hours
One thing you can almost always expect if you sign up to be an extra is long days. Finicky filmmakers can take hours to get the right shot, or cajole their actors to perform as desired. So you’d better be prepared to wait, and re-do scenes as many times as required. Regular extra Amy Rogers – who has appeared in TV shows Banshee and Homeland among others – told website Mental Floss, “There are days you get to set and you wait and wait and you never get used, or you work all day and the footage never gets used.”
39. Dancing fun cut short
This first one comes courtesy of BuzzFeed user haleyg42657e7d3, who responded to the website’s call for readers to share experiences of being an extra. They wrote, “I was an extra for a concert scene on Empire. We were at a club in Chicago... it was super-awkward having to dance, party, be loud, and have fun right up until they called ’CUT!’ then be perfectly silent and still. It could be seconds or ten minutes until they called ’ACTION!’ But as soon as they did you had to jump right back in as if you’d been dancing all night.” Strange!
38. Buffet fit for a superhero
With the aforementioned long hours, being an extra can be a hungry business. But the experiences of background actors with regard to the food on offer varies greatly from one shoot to the next. Still, Dawn McHargue, an experienced old-timer, hailed the spread provided on the set of Iron Man 3. She told Mental Floss, “We had anything you could think of: the best steak, shrimp, lobster and crab. The buffet table, you couldn’t see the end of it.” Sounds great!
37. The Billy Crystal lift
This experience – courtesy of Buzzfeed user mollymcduck – is just plain awesome. She wrote, “I was picked up by Billy Crystal. Literally.” Adding, “I was an extra on City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly’s Gold. Billy’s character was running through a crowd and was supposed to bump into my shoulder as he ran past me. In one take, he came directly at me head on. To avoid knocking me over, he ended up lifting me off the ground entirely. I clearly remember my two feet dangling in the air for a few seconds. He gently set me to the side and kept running.” Alas, as molly noted, that take didn’t make the movie.
