Background check

BURBANK, Calif.—How often do you get professional makeup artists to paint scabs and blisters on your face, dust “dirt” into your fingernails, and spray and tousle your hair into something resembling an owl’s nest?

That was my experience when I became a Hollywood “background actor” or “extra” on the TNT postapocalyptic show, The Last Ship.

I responded to a call for “thin” and “frail-looking” extras and got the job immediately. I was one of 16 cast as victims of a global viral pandemic.

We shot our scene in an alleyway decorated to look as though a tornado had hit: flipped trash cans, damp magazines and newspapers bleeding ink into the pavement, broken and dusty windows, and graffiti on exposed walls. I half-expected a family of rats to scuttle across.

Our instructions were simple: We were terminally ill citizens bartering our goods—toilet paper, canned soups, cigarette packs—for a fake “antidote” marketed by a crook. When the director gave the cue, we were to make a desperate grab for the “antidote” vials and scatter out of the camera’s view. Oh, and we were never to commit the ultimate sin: steal the limelight from the cast.

One overzealous extra forgot that rule. As the camera rolled, he stuck out his tongue, trembled his jaw, and hobbled about, earnestly dramatizing the “sick” part of his character. The assistant director had to remind him to “take it down a notch.” Another female extra, also bitten by the theater bug, began gasping and wheezing during the scene where we run off. We became alarmed—was she having a heart attack? But she winked, “I’m just playing sick!” She too got the message: Dial it down.

Everybody was miffed when we had to reshoot a scene because of an extra’s mistake. Shooting a single scene takes hours—sometimes up to 16 hours—even without the unnecessary delays. An artist sprayed our faces from time to time to keep our skin glistening with grease and grime. The shoot became so tedious that stand-ins with the same skin tone, hair color, and build as the main actor warmed his seat while the camera department fiddled with lighting and focus.

We spent more than nine hours wearing our new faces, which left us scratching at imaginary rashes. For the brief five minutes that actually make it on screen, we rehearsed and shot the same scene so many times that by the time the director gave the final satisfied “Cut!” the sky was purpling, and a fresh pimple had popped out on my cheek.

The zit was worth it. On my way out of the Warner Brothers studio in Burbank, I ran into a studio tour group. The tourists gaped at me and surreptitiously snapped pictures as they bumbled by in a cart. Ah, the thrill! I was no longer on the periphery, a common TV viewer—I was part of the show!

I REGISTERED AS A BACKGROUND ACTOR six months ago to learn about Hollywood. The first lesson: Life as a background actor is a college student’s idea of freebie heaven. Depending on how generous the production company is, background actors get treated to a free buffet of roast fish, vegan pasta, and raspberry-swirl cheesecake; free snacks such as protein bars and chunky-chip cookies; free hot coffee and tea; and tons and tons of free time to study, nap, or knit—all the while getting paid $9 an hour. Oh yes, being a background actor is a sweet gig, even if it pays peanuts. And apparently, more people are clueing in on this not-so-secret secret.

The afternoon I registered to be a background actor at Central Casting, the nation’s leading casting company, I showed up two hours early at its headquarters in Burbank. Yet more than 20 persons were waiting in line outside the office, sweating and roasting under a 90-plus-degree sun. They were men and women of all ages, shapes, and races, including a balding, elderly white man in a business suit and a middle-aged Asian woman dressed like a suburban housewife.

One young woman with a pixie cut said this was her third time attempting to register. The first two times, lines were so long that Central Casting turned away half.

Another young, sparkly-eyed black woman came from San Diego hoping that background acting would open up connections and help pay her rent. “Just start—that’s all I need,” she sighed, gripping her portfolio of professional pictures. “Any way I can start, anything I can do to start.”

Perhaps she was hoping to follow the footprints of former extras such as Brad Pitt, who played a “preppie guy” in 1987’s Less Than Zero, and Clint Eastwood, who appeared as an extra in several 1950s films before bursting into lead roles. In Hollywood, land of capricious luck and reborn fortunes, you never know what and when your ultimate “big break” will be.

So what does it take to become a background actor? Not much, really. Having random skills such as being able to juggle knives, twist your limbs into a pretzel, or fire-breathe can work in your favor. Another bonus: having a wardrobe stocked with diverse outfits and accessories, from business suits and elegant gowns to Halloween costumes and punk-rock gear. I once got turned down because I didn’t have Hampton Beach–style party-wear in patriotic colors.

Having a thick skin also helps, because this is the one job where people can say to your face, “Sorry, we don’t need someone who looks like you”—without fear of lawsuits. Usually, background actors have to search through the Central Casting’s “casting lines” themselves, where they’ll find detailed descriptions of the kind of looks a director wants (e.g., “CLEAN CUT, CLEAN SHAVEN, Caucasian-looking MAN who appears to be in his 30s-40s to portray a cop type”). Once the extra calls in, the casting director looks at the caller’s picture and swiftly proclaims yay or nay.

For months I scrolled through Central Casting’s submission requests, looking for descriptions that fit me. With my unambiguously Asian features, my pickings were few. I was only cast four times: Two were as a geeky employee of a tech company in the HBO sitcom Silicon Valley, the other two as a “sick person.” Clearly, I must look like one sick geek.

Still, I had fun playing the guessing game: Who will be cast as what? In my last role as a “sick hospital patient” for a pilot episode of a new action-drama, I scrutinized the extras reporting to duty in their plainclothes and correctly guessed that the broad-shouldered, thick-necked man with toothpick bobbing between his teeth would play a security guard and the distinguished-looking black man with the serene smile would play the doctor.

Later, as we extras lounged at our holding (the area designated for background actors), that “doctor” said he was sick of playing lawyers, doctors, and politicians’ aides: “For once, I’d really like to play a pimp.”

A Latino “nurse” named Erik chimed in, “Hollywood is supposed to be a culture creator, but it perpetuates the stereotype.” He pointed at several burly-looking men around the room—the type of men I wouldn’t imagine as wedding flower decorators: “Look, he was a cop, he was a cop, they were all cops. That’s how they all know each other—they’ve been cops together for years.” Those men all nodded and grumbled their agreement as Erik continued, “And look at me, I’m a nurse! Why do I have to play an underling? Does it have to do with the fact that I have an ‘h’ for ‘Hispanic’ next to my name on my profile? Next time you see a Mexican gardener pushing a lawn mower in your favorite show, remember people like me.”

There are worse stereotypes. While filming Silicon Valley at the Sony Pictures Studio in Culver City, I met another extra named Zee, a mocha-skinned, trim-bearded college student. It was a cool Saturday morning, and we were waiting outside the fake headquarters building of Hooli, our fake tech company, clutching our fake Hooli ID badges. When I complained to Zee about being stereotyped as a geek because I’m Korean, he looked me up and down and said, “Don’t worry. I can also see you playing an air stewardess. Or a laundromat owner.” I took a second to digest that, then asked him what he typically plays. “A terrorist,” he replied with a crooked smile, stroking his dark beard. “Oh, and a liquor store owner. I’m not Middle Eastern, by the way.” I stopped complaining.

SOME BACKGROUND ACTORS bitterly compare their hierarchy in Hollywood to the “untouchables” in the Hindu caste system, but I’ve also met individuals like Darryl Stewart, a fellow USC alumnus who’s been background acting as a professional career for more than 20 years—and proud of it. He’s appeared in many hit TV shows and movies, such as the Batman, Spiderman, and Transformers sequels, ER, Criminal Minds, Desperate Housewives, and his “pride and joy,” Star Trek: Enterprise, in which he played an uncredited Starfleet admiral: “I got a uniform made specifically for me, with the shoes and everything. It was so cool!”

Stewart then showed me a clip from the 2008 film Hancock, in which Will Smith appears in a bank through a storm of bullets and explosions—a scene that took six weeks to shoot. Stewart was cast as one of the bank robbery hostages, and he pointed himself out as we watched the scene on his laptop together: “Now here we are … this is inside the bank … there! That’s me, right there! Can you see? That’s me!”

Hollywood attracts many who enjoy their screen time, but as a background actor I observed the varying levels of interactions and camaraderie that take place behind the screen. Background actors get the most downtime, since the majority of our time is spent waiting to be called on-camera. For some Christians, that’s prime time for witnessing.

Producer Jeff Reed found that out when he did background acting periodically to pay the bills. He was an extra in the HBO drama True Blood, a show about Southern vampires that isn’t shy on nudity and gore. At first, Reed considered turning the role down because of his Christian faith. But he eventually decided to go through with it. One morning on set, he was listening to Revelation on his audio Bible when a bored male actor started chatting him up. The actor suddenly asked, “Hey, ever read the book of Revelations?”

‘I’ve heard about retired couples who quietly evangelize while background acting.’

By then, Reed had learned not to be surprised when doors of evangelism opened. “I was just listening to Revelations on my iPod!” he exclaimed, and the two men dived into a deeper conversation about faith, doubts, and the gospel that continued beyond the set. Reed’s new friend joined him at church on Easter Sunday and a Bible study among Hollywood professionals. “What I find most amusing and ironic is that all this happened in the middle of this show called True Blood,” Reed said. “God’s not without a sense of humor.”

Stories like Reed’s aren’t so rare. The roster of background actors includes many young wannabe-actors praying to be noticed, dejected middle-aged bachelors who never were noticed, and retired old folks who hunger for human interaction. But I’ve also heard about retired couples who quietly evangelize while background acting, met Christians who memorize Scriptures while on set, and learned that the extra-nice crew member who treated background actors with such respect attends my church.

I registered as a background actor hoping to study the internal organs of Hollywood. I observed that and more: Even if its belly sometimes flushes out junk and funky odors, God has His hand on Hollywood.