Hi Everyone,
Ok...I told my Cybil Shepard Tale from Moonlighting TV Show and Michael Landon's Highway to Heaven Story in earlier posts about working as an Extra on some TV Shows. This story is about the time I finally got a speaking part in a Century 21 National Commercial and was still treated like an Extra...lol. So, I had auditioned for a small part in a Century 21 Commercial and I got the part! So exciting, even when I think about it now...lol. Anyway, I get to the set in Fillmore, I think, filming at a train station and the train will be actually moving in the scene. I see the Director and he asks me to come on the train with him. The train is empty except for the two of us and he's showing me where I'll be sitting on the train and where the guy I'm talking to in the scene will be sitting besides me. The scene is everyone on the train is reading the same newspaper and looking at the same Century 21 Real Estate section of the newspaper. The guy next to me says to me "It's got a big hot water heater, I like that" and I say to him "30 gallons?" and he says "50!" and we both make a look of WOW...that's it, that's the whole scene. And they want us to say our lines as the train is going over a small bridge. So I got the info from the Director and he says, "Go get some breakfast & coffee and meet me back here when we are all set up. I headed to the trailer to grab some grub and I see a bunch of Extras that I have worked with in the past. They are playing cards, shooting the shit while waiting to work. They ask me if I got this job through Central Casting(casts extras) and I say, "No, I got this through my Agent, she also got me that trailer over there with my name on it...lol". They were happy for me and joking about how an Extra has become a Principle actor, blah, blah, blah...and so I join them playing cards and yappin about things of the world when one of the Production Assistants yells out that she needs all the Extras to board the train for the first shot, so I got up from the table like everyone else, but started heading toward my trailer, knowing they'll come for me later. The PA sees me heading in the opposite direction of everyone else and yells at me " I said all my Extras come this way, NOT that way, lets go!" So, I look at her and ask her if she means me too? and she says "Yes, this way!". My friends start joking with me and say things like "Once an Extra, always an Extra". So I say "OK, I'm coming". When I get on the train, the PA tells all the Extras to wait for her to place them in a seat. I already knew the seat I had that the Director told me I was sitting in, so I just sat down there. Well, the PA spots me sitting in the first seat directly in front of the camera and almost blows a gasket and comes running up to me, physically grabs me by my shoulder and says "Well I can see I'm going to have a problem with you today!" and "Get out of that seat! I didn't tell you to sit there!" I said to her "I'm suppose to sit here" she yells back at me "YOU don't tell me where you are sitting, I TELL YOU! now get out of that seat!". I tell her "You don't understand..." but before I could finish my sentence, she cut me off and said "YOU don't understand that if you say one more word, you're going to be going home early this morning!" Now, I got real calm, I knew I was not going home early because of her and she would soon find out what was what. I said to her as calmly as I could muster "Where would you like me to sit?" She said "Come with me to the back of the train!" She placed me in the last seat and then said "And hold this newspaper up high, so they can't see your face!" I sat there calmly, my friends all wondering if I had made up the story about having my own trailer and a Principle part in the commercial. Just then the Director, Producer and the usual hanger-ons came onto the train. Everyone is in their place, except for the front empty seat in front of the camera. The Director says "Where's Joe? where's my actor?". I lowered my newspaper and raised my hand from the back of the train "I'm right here, Eddie!" The Director says "What are you doing back there? You know where you're sitting." As I make my way to the front of the train, I pass by the PA that was yelling at me a few minutes ago. She's now lipping to me "I'm sorry", I said "You never gave me a chance to tell you" then the Director says "What's going on?" and I look at the PA and say "We're just having some fun, huh?" and she once again "You didn't tell me you were a Principle." I said to her "You should treat everyone has if they are a Principle." All the extras started clapping...lol. I come take my seat. We filmed 9 takes and we were done before lunch. The PA begs me to let her get me my lunch and bring it to my trailer, but I told her that my scene was done and I was going home. I worked about 3.5 hours that day and made about $14,000.00 in residuals over the next 2 years until the commercial stopped running. Hopefully that PA learned a lesson that day. That lesson is, You never really know who you are talking to, so treat everyone the way you'd like to be treated and you'll never go wrong! That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
- Joe