The Periphery
We were leaning on the false railing of the fake cafe set in the real city of San Francisco, awaiting the action to which we would react. I could tell we were supposed to be in San Francisco because on every wall hung multiple images of San Francisco; near the entrance, an enormous typographic print read, simply, “San Francisco.” Three cameras were pointed at our general area but not on us specifically.
For reasons I cannot explain, I told her I did comedy. The question that followed was the same question which always follows:
“Where do you go up? What’s your favorite club?”
“Oh, I don’t do clubs,” I declared. “I perform in, uh, bars.”
“Oh, well, that’s a good way to get started,” she encouragingly replied.
“I’ve been doing it for 12 years,” I said.
At this, we both burst into hysterics, sharing a laugh which reverberated throughout the soundstage. She slapped her leg in delight, like Dave Chappelle celebrating the success of a downward punching punch line.
I had no idea how long she had been doing background, but the woman exuded authority. “Ooh, we’re gonna get a smoke bump!” she exuberantly exclaimed once the fog machine began filling the room with choke generating fumes. While her Facebook had, to date, been filled with blurry shots of her pretending to eat in the distance of basic cable shows, her hard work had also, finally, paid off — she recently achieved the dream of all background actors, that of being upgraded to a speaking role in a network sitcom. And goddamn, was she proud (“They even gave me my own honeywagon!”).
If you have even a modicum of pride, the process of doing background work is designed to test it. You are instructed not only to abstain from speaking to “talent,” but to not even make eye contact with it; you aren’t allowed to eat until the last grip on set has gotten his fill from the trough of warm salad; you can’t even use the same bathroom as the crew (“clowns pee outside”). The entire operation is constructed to humiliate, to put you in your place, and I love it.
Because, well, the miserable truth is this: No matter who you are, no matter how pathetic, there is always someone who wants what you have. Amazon drivers making $15 an hour (pre-taxes) to run themselves ragged pissing in bottles would kill to be paid more to stand, which is all background work is. And not only do they tell you where to stand, they tell you how to stand, when to walk, whom to pantomime speaking to. Your hand is held every step of the way, as it is generally assumed you are a moron, as you are an actor.
But if you don’t consider yourself better than the task that has been assigned to you, and you don’t crawl up the ass of the PA who is just trying to take breakfast orders at 6 o’clock in the goddamned morning because “most oats are actually processed in the same facility as gluten” — if you just shut up, and keep your head down — you will be paid for nothing, for existing, for being avail as a living entity. Pride is what makes one want a speaking role; pride is what makes one believe they deserve to be acknowledged as “talent.” Eliminate the pride, and cash the check; at least it’s real, unlike the career prospects of anyone who didn’t emerge from Leslie Mann’s womb.
Side Note: The gluten-free diva, who self-identified as an actor (as in, said things like "Ah, the life of an actor"), did not stop speaking the entire week I was in her presence, despite the fact that our call time was 5AM. “I wonder how her vocal cords can endure,” I wrote while suffering in her orbit, “I wonder how paralysis doesn't set in. Sometimes I wish I could shake the map and send them all back to the midwest.” On the last day of filming, she exited the set clad only in a bra — the PA driving us back to basecamp’s eyes bulged at the sight, and she felt compelled to ask, “Does anyone else see this shit?”
I saw something, yet said nothing. I am a method background actor, by which I mean to say I am silent on set, speaking only when spoken to. I show up, grab my voucher, and find the least conspicuous place in holding to sit and pray I don’t get asked to actually do anything, as my self-worth is not predicated on whether or not my foot is visible in a Starz original. It’s easy to fly under the radar, as everyone else there actually wants to be there, rocketing their hands up with childlike glee whenever the AD asks who’s willing to be in the next scene.
Because they don’t want to be actors, they are actors. They talk amongst themselves about the roles they’ve played on stage, the auditions they’ve almost booked, the stars they’ve stood in the periphery of. They see background work as a stepping stone to great things, a temporary indignity that will be laughed at once their number comes up.
I regularly cross camera in a show for and about teenagers, where I populate the newsroom of a paper one of the leads is interning at (if you were to watch the show, which I have not, you could probably tell I’m a newspaper writer because wardrobe put me in a crop top). As a result, I keep running into the same background actor, who, when not saying something wildly inappropriate and following it up with “I’m just kidding!” is telling his story not to anyone who will listen but to anyone who doesn’t physically walk away. The story, not that any of us asked, is this: Years ago, right after getting off the plane from Box Elder or whatever, he went to see a taping of Conan on the Warner Brothers lot. “I told myself, someday I’m gonna work here,” he reminisced, “and, well, now I do.” This is tantamount to saying “I always wanted to drive a Porsche, and now I’m a valet.”
Their hubris is dazzling, their lack of self awareness divine. They, as people, are far more interesting than the shows they are paid to populate. I would pay to watch them.
Recently, I was paired in a scene with a woman so thin I’m not entirely sure she was actually there, a wisp whose birth post-dated 9/11. She was instructed to walk to my table and pretend to speak to me; take after take, she would saunter up and hold her wine glass to her face like a goblet of ambrosia, mock-sniffing with delight, letting her tongue run across her lips and her eyes raise upward to the heavens in hamfisted ecstasy. As we were supposed to be at a conference and not a 19th century bordello, she had to be told to tone her performance down. Shortly thereafter, she walked to lunch in a bathrobe. I defy you to write a better character.