An Ex-Con’s Guide to Being a Background Artist

So you just got out of prison and you need to find gainful employment. Where’s a parolee to go? Central Casting!

Here are some tips to help a fish survive his new life as an extra.

-If you’re working on a cattle call where there are more extras than cells in a block, know that they can’t really keep track of everyone, and unlike COs, PA’s don’t do counts. This means you can wander off the yard and find a quiet place to nap or do push-ups. Just make sure you make it back to the bullpen before your bit is up.

-Stay away from anyone with lawn chairs. These lifers make a career out of being an extra and love to talk about how they got to be a pirate on Dead Men’s Chest. They will bore you to tattooed tears and you’ll probably be tempted to shank them, which, (unlike in prison,) will not help you gain the respect and esteem of your background artist cellies.

-Stick a Snickers bar or a can of Coke in your pocket every time you walk by the Kraft service table. Take your score home and send care packages to that cho-mo with the life jolt. Or, if you’re feeling entrepreneurial, you can exploit small black children to unload your stash for you; just send the kid to fence the wham whams outside any Starbucks in West Hollywood or Beverly Hills.

-Sometimes production companies will try to save money by giving the extras cheap boxed lunches while the crew eats gourmet spread from a lunch truck. Don’t plex, just pose as a gaffer. Even people who work on movies don’t really know what gaffers do, so just act like you belong and you know what you’re doing. And if anyone rats you out, just dummy up, give 'em the red eye and roll it up back to extra holding.