At a faux party scene in a crumbled mossy building frame, lit with romantic white lanterns in Casco Viejo, the trendy but dangerous antique section of Panama City…750 extras wait to make their debut into film in _______.
And wait, we did, three nights, all night long. We waited in our heels, we waited in our flip flops holding our heels, we waited on the pavement, we played cards, we watched the grip boys chain smoke, we complained, we ate a can of “prop olives” for the Sprite martinis.
Luckily, our waiting spot happened to be at the bar (a genius idea from Rob who claimed that there has to be a bar scene in every ______) and all of a sudden our boredom was violently broken, and our five seconds of fame and stardom were upon us when the hair and makeup people swooped in and frantically attacked our faces with powder and lipstick. The lady on my face says to the lady on my hair, “Get rid of it! Get rid of it all!” in absolute dismay, and she whipped it into a tidy librarian bun in a matter of seconds. Cailey got her curls greased down and I had to suppress my laugher at her unhappy face as she tried to fluff them back up. We got rearranged and twisted and handed new fake martinis. The camera was about five feet away and ACTON! was clicked right in front of our faces. We pretended to watch a speech and then mimed talking to each other, which is embarrassing, and gave me the feeling I was in a bad high school musical production of “Guys and Dolls.”
Because of the apparent importance of pretending to talk, the British boys in charge of the extras learned two words in Spanish: “silenio!” and “mimica!” and bellowed them earnestly with frequency, when 90% of the Panamanian extras spoke fluent English and were rolling their eyes at each other, snickering at their accents.
The second night, still camped out at the bar, Cailey’s hand was hand-picked to do what it looked like as a promotional shot. A Heineken glass and Coca-Cola Zero bottles were lined up and they took about five takes of her moving a martini glass and people leaving and leaning on the bar. I was sat positioned in a chair, thank god, because the costume lady for some reason gave me four-inch heels and a short skin-tight silver dress when every one else’s were long and flowing. When I looked at her with a desperate plea in my eyes, she said in a bored voice, “You’ve got nice legs,” and sent me to the set looking like a hooker from outer space.
There were hours of takes and only the extras on the balcony were needed to “mimica.” so about twenty of us were sitting on the fake DJ stage and by 3:00 am Cailey and I were surrounded by sleeping men in suits and one was actually snoring. We went home exhausted, with aching feet and hopeful hearts that our big bar scene won’t get cut.
My favorite part was our extras contract: it stated that “the rights (of your images) hereunder are granted for the entire universe and shall inure in perpetuity” in case they are distributed to aliens? I felt like that contract was written especially for me: my dress belongs on a different planet.

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Filed under: News on February 25th, 2008