the tortured existence of an extra

When I lived in L.A., I signed up with a couple of different extra casting agencies. These companies cast extras for movies and television shows. In these situations, you pay a small upfront fee, and they add you in their databanks. They take a picture of you, driver's license style.

The main casting company is called Central Casting. When I signed with them, I was new to California. I went down on a Wednesday or Thursday morning to register. Once I finally found the place in Burbank, I was startled to find several hundred people, all shapes and sizes, waiting in a crowded room. The whole process of paper work and picture taking took a couple of hours.

More recently, I signed up with Sandy Alessi Casting. It was a much smaller boutique in a random office space in Studio City. It seemed more personable, so I reluctantly signed up. My friend and hero, Benj, talked me into it. He was quite successful with Central Casting, and he told me he heard about Sandy Alessi through the extras circuit. (Yeah, there's an extras circuit.) So, I registered with them expecting never to get extra work. Of course, they always give you the "Hollywood", "Oh, we'll call you." Of course, the idea is that you have to call them. Usually, if they call you, there's been some kind of mistake.

Two times, in the past month, Sandy Alessi Casting has called my cell phone and offered me extra work. Being in East Tennessee, I kicked myself for misssing out on cool opportunity. But, what are you gonna do? If I was in Cali, I would literally be on the set of Fast and Furious 3 right now. Weird, huh?

Of course, I can't continually beat myself up for leaving that place. With all the excitement and cool opportunity, there are equal amounts of hardship, danger, and disappointment.