Feelin' EXTRA Special...

3 days. 350 tan sweaters. Roughly $500 and over 5,000 calories. Let's begin.

TUESDAY
On Monday, Joanna and I each received a text message alerting us that we were needed on the set of Four Christmases, a Holiday 2008 romantic comedy starring Walk the Line superhottie Reese Witherspoon and Swingers bad boy Vince Vaughn. Awesome, we said, time to make the big bucks ($8/hr, $64/day).

So we borrowed some pale-toned sweaters and sweatshirts from our pals Justin and Odin in Santa Monica (per the request of the casting lords) and drove out to Hawthorne, California - about a half-hour drive in moderate traffic. We abandoned our car in a cold school parking lot and jumped aboard a shuttle bus headed to "set."

"Set" was divided into two locations: (1) a small, ramshackle church which served as Extras Holding, and (2) an over-sized eyesore, a.k.a. the New Life Community Center, where the actual shoot was taking place. The NLCC comes complete with a grand vestibule with floor-to-ceiling glass windows and a stage wide enough to accommodate a three-person band and Vince Vaughn's personality.

We were the first bus to arrive, so we checked in and passed through Wardrobe, where we were asked to flaunt our chartreuse, corn and cream-colored clothing choices, at which point the Wardrobe Mistress grimaced and hesitantly pointed to a beige pair of slacks and their corresponding sweater vest. "And ... I guess keep on that pink shirt ... I don't know ... I'm not a magician, for chrissake."

On to Hair&Make-up, where they spray down the girls with CVS brand hair products and wave on the boys, uninterested in grooming our uneven sideburns, hiding acne and hard-to-ignore birthmarks, and attending to cowlicks that have become unruly.

"I'm done? That's it?"
"Well, there's really nothing else we can do for y0u, sir."

And at this point, once you've found a seat in one of the NON-UNION tents and set your belongings down and made a pit stop at the designated port-o-potty, you begin WAITING. And WAITING. It's sort of like being the passenger on a cross-country road trip (deja vu, anyone?), except that you're on the clock. While we wait, we:

1. Submit for OTHER background work on our handy dandy iPhones (J&B)
2. Read "No Country For Old Men" (B)
3. Read a book on how-to-become-famous without being obnoxious (J)
4. Making small talk with others (B, then J, then B, B again, B bringing J over, then J)
5. Eat (primarily B)

Joanna and I strolled up to the Craft Services table, prepared to stock up on hummus and carrots, protein bars and other highfalutin foods prepared fresh this morning. You can imagine our surprise when the chef (a bearded man with lumberjack apparel and a passenger van loaded-up Costco-style) bestowed upon us a luscious feast of mini-croissants, mini-bagels and mini-muffins in three mini-flavors along with the finest selection of mini-cereals. Our buffet lunch featured spaghetti with both meaty and vegetarian sauces (pretty impressive, considering), veggie assemble and various sheet cakes. By the afternoon, Craft Services had devolved into Red Vines (stale, flavorless Twizzlers) in wholesale buckets and metal tins filled to the brim with Gummi Bears, Gummi Worms and party mix.

By five o'clock we hadn't done an ounce of work. The day was nearly over, and we were headed home with pay but without any satisfaction. They only needed 7 or 8 people out of the 350 present to stay "for safety," and Joanna - in her pink and cornflower blue top glistening in the high-watt production bulbs - scored us spots almost instantaneously.

Unfortunately, hanging out for two extra hours didn't get us into Reese's trailer. After cleaning up everyone else's mess, we got a turn at the stars' Craft Services table - a delicately placed spread with everything from shrimp to ravioli, with an abundant soda selection and and an espresso/latte machine out of some sci-fi novel. Of course, we'd already stuffed ourselves with licorice and wheat thins, so we clocked out, hopped the shuttle to the parking lot, drove to the gym, worked out for as long as our bodies could sustain us and headed home, burnt.

WEDNESDAY
Los Angeles' professional background actors are a tighter and more intimate community than your local nudists' colony. Everybody knows everybody who knows everybody else. Jo and I blended in well enough on Day 1, but now the folks around us were forming cliques and hugging and reminiscing about the 90s. And, for some reason, we suddenly felt like we were trespassing, like strangers in a strange land...

By noon we were shuffling into the church, and because Joanna and I offered to stay late the previous night, we were some of the first to be strategically placed in the pews. In a matter of minutes, we found ourselves seated behind the stars. Unbelievable! Maybe we'd get a line!! We sat there in our assigned seats like the best lil churchgoers, saying faux prayers and fixing our gaze on Reese's stand-in, who was eerily identical in just about every way.

"Sir?"
"Who me?" I asked, thinking back to my baptism, my communion, my years in Youth Group.
"Yes, sir, can you come with me?"
"No, I'm fine, thanks."
"Come with me. It's alright. It's not personal." I stood, side-stepping towards the aisle, approaching the man in the baseball cap. "There's just a little too much beige going on here."

Great. Thanks Wardrobe Mistress. The tan-on-tan has turned against me.

The man escorted me to a seat on the aisle, about five rows back from where I was. Not an awful position by any means. After all, if Vince - for whatever reason - decides to strut down the aisle, I'll be sure to reach out and grab him and give him a handshake or a high five, depending on the moment. Yes, this will do just fine, thanks.

"Hey, you, can you stand up for a second?"
"Who, me? No no no - I just moved here. I'm new to the neighborhood."
"It's alright. Come with me."

Gosh darnit, what did I do now? Who did I spit on? I stayed late last night and picked up soiled napkins and lipstick-stained Dixie cups. I deserve better!

"Why don't you sit there?"
"Where?"
"There."
"Where, at the end of that pew over there, totally out of sight?"
"Precisely."

If the seats behind Reese and Vince were prime-time real estate, I was now across the tracks in a hut made from mud and sticks. If Joanna's section was New York, I was now in rural Jersey. I was twice-rejected, and it stung.

And there we stayed. I now felt utterly worthless, watching from afar while my co-workers (and Jo) interacted with Reese and Vince and Kristen and got some face time in the Panavision cameras hovering only yards away. On the upside, I had a few hours to befriend some of the other folks in the reject section, particularly a nice girl named Cimcie who - oddly enough - went to Killian High School (only blocks from my childhood home) and is now taking on odd jobs while en route to law school. Cimcie was into horoscopes, and she read me my Virgo predictions from her iPhone between shots. Perhaps the stars would align and I'd be re-seated tomorrow, up in front with the big shots. Perhaps I too would get some face time, a line, a small role. But no. Instead, it read something like,

"Spend some time at home with your kids today. Your Gemini moon is in high spirits."

THURSDAY
Today we were slated to shoot the same scenes we shot yesterday but from behind, meaning the cameras would be seeing the backs of our heads. Whoopee.

We sat around most of the day, reading like it was our job and meeting some new, interesting people. We met a woman named Joyce who works regularly as a background actor and, with all due respect, told us that this is not the line of work for aspiring actors; and we spent a good hour or two talking to a guy named Gary - a Dirty South DJ from New Orleans - who told us his Hurricane Katrina escape story. We were finally beginning to integrate...

Lunch - not too different from yesterday's chicken burritos - consisted of enchiladas, garlic bread and salad. And more sheet cake. Extras love sheet cake.

Wrapping up our last day onset, we realized that Joyce's advice was right on the money. Even if this is the only thing paying these days, background work is no way to make it as an actor. Our time is better spent working on indie and student films; and if we're not doing that, we're marketing ourselves and sending out headshots; and if we're not doing that, we're exercising and coming home to write sprawling blogs about our experiences. And it was nice to think that we could walk away from three days of work with this knowledge, having learned this very valuable lesson.

We clocked out after a full 8-hour day, saying farewell to those we had met and chatted with, not sure whether we'd see them again. Most of them would be back on Friday to complete the scene, but we declined. Instead, we're babysitting (J) and blogging (B) and making the most with what we have to give (J&B).

Much Love,
B