YOUSEF ELDRINthought he might make some easy cash as an extra - but it didn't quite work out that way
SIGNING UP TO be an Arab thug is probably not most people’s idea of a fun time, but it is how I spent a day recently when I signed up to be a TV extra. I have never had any formal acting training or experience, so it was going to be a significant career diversion. But getting a peek behind-the-scenes of a major TV production made it tempting. Learning that I would earn some quick and easy cash in the process was the clincher. The production was a BBC drama called George Gently, filming its third series in Ireland. It stars British actor Martin Shaw, best known for the 1980s show The Professionals. And supporting him, for one day only, was me.
A friend put me forward to a casting agency looking for Arab, Spanish or Italian-looking men aged between 19 and 60 to play the part of “Arab Gang Member”. I received an e-mail calling me to a screening: “Although the role is for extra, the people who will be chosen will be the best friends of the lead actor. So it is very important, as you will be seen quite often and will be highly involved in it.” Excellent. Best friends with the lead actor. Not only might this lead to my big break, but I would also have my first celebrity buddy. After a brief audition (which amounted to little more than having my photo taken) I was informed that I’d got the part.
George Gently is a police drama set in Britain in the 1960s. A costume fitting was going to be required ahead of the day of filming for all the extras. I was provided with a shirt, trousers and waistcoat in fairly unappealing, but vintage, shades of brown and orange. The trousers were particularly old-fashioned and, if the truth be told, a bit smelly. However, I figured it would not be wise to ask for another pair and be marked out as the “precious” extra.
I had begun to notice some sideway looks at my hair by some of the crew that were fitting us with costumes. Eventually I was asked, “Would you mind if we trimmed your hair a bit?” Not wanting to seem like a bad sport I replied, “sure, whatever you think.” My words were accepted quite literally and 20 minutes later my haircut resembled a style monks would dish out to each other at a fraternity party.
Most extras are cast through agencies such as Bray-based Movie Extras. The agency charges a joining fee and while they do not guarantee you any work, they boast a large roster of TV shows and film productions as their clients. I found out at the costume fitting that the minimum pay for a job is €84, which you get even if called only for an hour. But this fee can cover up to a 10-hour day, which by my calculations works out at slightly below the minimum hourly wage. My idea of some quick and easy cash was starting to vanish.
My first day did not start well – I arrived nearly 30 minutes late to set due to my lack of proficiency with Google Map directions. Lateness is frowned upon on film sets and people’s humour at seven in the morning here is no better than at any other workplace. I skip the breakfast on offer and head to find my costume. Within an hour I am standing on the set of a British pub, costume on, hair gelled down and parted to the left. The director rarely talks to extras. Instead a first, or even second, assistant director is left to inform you of your action. I am asked to play a game of snooker in the centre of the pub.
The scene that is being shot concerns a gang of young Muslim men, whose unholy antics have caught the attention of the interfering local Imam who bursts into the pub to castigate them. The action on a film set moves tediously slowly. The scene is shot from various angles and we are asked to vaguely remember our actions each time. This is repeated for a couple of hours.
The actor playing the Imam starts chatting to us in between takes, but it’s not long before he is also telling me how to hold my snooker cue and where to hit the ball. I am beginning to be alarmed by the amount of similarities to his character, and then it twigs, this is my first brush with the “method”. I reply with offhand body language and grunts, assuming that the idea here is for us both to remain in character. But at this he shrugs and walks away. Perhaps that wasn’t method acting after all.
The Movie Extras website advertises the job as: “It is lots of fun being on set, and you may even get the chance to rub shoulders with Colin Farrell, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Kim Cattral or Christopher Lee.” After four hours watching the same line repeated from every angle imaginable, I am becoming sceptical.
When lunch finally arrives, the extras are asked to hold back to allow the cast and crew to grab lunch first as they will need to get back to set sooner. This seems fair enough. We are then told that there are two dining buses outside: one for cast and crew and the other for extras, so as to allow the crew to “talk shop” over lunch. This seems to have less merit. We are assured this has nothing to do with any sort of set hierarchy, but I briefly contemplate a Rosa Parks-like move on the buses. However, by the time I have a hot plate from the mobile canteen, I obediently take a seat on the bus marked “extras”.
Over lunch I talk to Suleiman, an Indian man who looks every bit the traditional Eastern film star, with full moustache and blow-dried hair. Suleiman has lived in Ireland for the past five years, working mainly at an Esso petrol station. He works regularly as an extra, a career that he says began in India more than 25 years ago in Bollywood. I suspect the magic of cinema is the excitement that attracts Suleiman to keep coming back to extra work. It certainly cannot be the hours, pay or lunches.
I think the once is enough for me. I prefer to keep the glamour on screen. But I’ll take a moment to reflect on the little guys whose work contributes to create that all-important blur, over the shoulder of the leading star, in the far background of the picture. See www.movieextras.ie