My First Casting Call !

Yesterday I went to my first casting call in Barnstable, MA. I applied to be an extra in the upcoming film I Hate You, Dad, starring Adam Sandler, Leighton Meester, and Andy Samburg. The crowd outside Barnstable High School was an incredible sight. It showed how democratic our notion of the extra is: ANYBODY can do NOTHING in a movie. All heights, weights, genders, some in wheelchairs, some not, all hairstyles and degrees of hair absence, every race, creed and color, every sort of human welcomed on the plaque posted on the Statue of Liberty, were on hand. It had a nice representative quality to it, somewhere between the United Nations and Noah's Ark.

I chatted with some people in line. They all said they wanted to be an extra in the film in order to get a closer look at Adam Sandler, whose films they really loved. I thought this was interesting: is the extra really closer to the star than the camera (ie a front row seat in the theater)? I told them I was welcoming the possibility of a perfectly obstructed view of Sandler, and that part of me wanted to be an extra so that I had no choice but to not see him, or see only the back of Happy Gilmore's head.

Men got blue cards to fill out, women pink, to which they stapled our photographs. The questions pertained to height, weight, shoe, coat, dress jacket, and hat sizes: the same questions valued by morticians and undertakers. In addition, there was a box to check if I would be ok with "partial" or "complete" nudity. (more thoughts on this in another post). The card asked about "special talents": thinking that it would help me get on screen, I wrote that I was a good walker. During this process, it was announced that our chances of being selected would dramatically improve if we happened to own a car from the 80's. (This is consistent with an interesting fact of Hollywood history: many of the extras in films from the 30's and 40's were wealthy socialites because they were able to supply their own fancy wardrobes, ie without assistance from the production). I immediately rued my recent decision to trash my K car.

What is a casting call for extras? Imagine an American Idol try out but without the need to exhibit talent. Let's call it American Idle.

Inside we filled out our cards on folding tables stretching all the way down the hall in which the Barnstable High School sports trophies and team ribbons of the past 50 years are displayed. I felt an ominous resemblance between the dusty victory cups behind the glass and my own aspiration to be an extra. I anticipate that becoming an extra is similar to getting the blue ribbon in the 5 kilometer....not now, but in 1957. Being an extra would immediately cast me onto an obscure trophy, an internal and private memory baffling to anyone other than myself. To identify my image for another person would be a little like the octogenerian who sidles up to you in front of the case in which hang the medallions from the 1945 golf tourney: he points to one of the names and says with glee, "That's ME."

I learn next week about whether I have been chosen to be an Extra to the Sandler!
Tune in to find out.