Super Bowl Grass A72

On Sunday, along with 128 million other viewers around the world, I watched the Super Bowl halftime show. And like many of you, I found myself fascinated with the grass people.

(If you missed it, take 13 minutes to watch Bad Bunny’s halftime performance and look closely — the grass bushes are humans.)

The next day, a friend casually revealed he had been a grass person in the Super Bowl. So of course, I peppered him with a bazillion questions and luckily he was willing to spill the beans on everything behind the scenes.

Here’s what it was like to be grass A72 in the Super Bowl LX halftime show:

At the rehearsals, they called us “grass bunnies.”

In January, I saw a TikTok of a woman sharing a casting call she received for the Super Bowl. She didn’t meet the height requirements, but she walked through all the details and shared the link to apply. You had to be 5’8” - 6’ and able to carry a 40lb costume. It paid $18.70/hr. To apply, you had to submit a headshot and full body photo, and enter a bunch of body measurements.

Oh, I’m a big fan of Bad Bunny!

No idea. I figured that I might be moving equipment or something. So I just submitted my photo and measurements and forgot about it.

Then two weeks before the Super Bowl, I got an email from the casting company that said I’d been selected to be in the Super Bowl. It just said show up to this location at this time for a briefing on what to expect.

So I drove to Santa Clara that Sunday night.

So I didn’t really know what it was. I figured that they were going to look at us and verify that we could actually do the job. But it actually didn’t seem that strict. They didn’t re-measure us or anything. There were 350-400 people and they didn’t have time to really scrutinize us.

But they basically just told us: “Your job in this will be to kind of stand and hold a position. You’re part of the set.” And so they broke us into four groups ABCD, and assigned each of us a number between 1-100. They said you go here, you go there, and we just randomly got assigned to a spot on the field.

Then we just stood there and they said this is what it’s gonna be.

We were all just like, we don’t really know what we are going to be doing. At that point, because of something they said, I thought we might be palm trees. I think other people also thought the same, but they didn’t really tell us what it was.

But they said it’s not a dancing role, it’s kind of a standing role being part of the set. So I think some people probably dropped out at that point, but the vast majority stayed.

Yeah, we were all trying to figure out what was going on. They made us check our phones into Yondr pouches before each meeting, so we never had our phones during the rehearsals. And because of that, everyone was just talking to everybody because there was nothing else to do.

In fact, I don’t remember talking to as many people as I did in the last two weeks…for like the past two years. So that was really cool, actually.

On the second night, they call us back and they’re like, okay, we’re gonna show you the costume. We all sat down in a room and this person came out in this costume and everyone looked at it, and we were all like “oh.”

So at that point, some people backed out because they realized they weren’t going to see much of the show. And depending on what your assigned spot was, you were going to have a dramatically different experience.

I was on an inside-facing spot — the interior wall of the grass — so I could see the performance. Some other people were the exterior facing wall. And then there were like two or three internal layers of grasses and those people couldn’t see anything. So they’d have three really long days of rehearsals and they wouldn’t be able to see the performance, all while wearing this stupid suit.

For everyone who stayed, I think there was just always some hope that we would get to meet Bad Bunny.

But at the same time, I think most people were like what am I doing? This is absolutely ridiculous. I have to take time off from work, I’m not performing, and this isn’t glamorous by any means…

But then after the Super Bowl, everyone wanted to know “How did you get to do that? I wish I could have done that!” Everyone was like that had to be so awesome, just being in the Super Bowl, being in that performance.

And I think we all had that feeling inside us throughout.

You wear these sweats, gloves, and a green balaclava. There were goggles to keep the grass out of your eyes, but they would fog up.

The costume is basically a large dress. You wear these sort of straps and the body is a heavy fabric with all these grasses. Then there are lower arms, upper arms, and a head.

A fun fact is that they bought the fake grass from Michael’s and apparently they used up all of Michael's grass inventory across all of its nationwide stores.

You couldn’t really easily get dressed yourself. They had to dress us one by one. So the dressing process was really long. For any given person, it took about three minutes to get them dressed. But there were several hundred people. So there was a line of people waiting to get dressed and multiple stations and when you got to the end, you just sat in a chair and waited.

You’d start with the dress. There were a couple of different sizes depending on your body. They would put that on you first, then you’d move down the line and put on the helmet, then do your arms. Then they would velcro you up.

Yeah. There were only a handful of people that I met who weren’t familiar with his music. Most people were really into either Bad Bunny or Reggaeton. So everyone was super into the music.

They didn’t give us much information ever. We didn’t even know who the guest performers would be. In the beginning, they said it wasn’t clear if Bad Bunny was even going to rehearse because the show was similar his residency. There was a fake Bad Bunny to move through the sequences with the dancers.

Then Tuesday rolls around, and they said tonight there is going to be a musician singing with us. I’m on the North side, near the electrical poles. The singer (who sounds a lot like Bad Bunny) is singing NUEVAYol, and then Bad Bunny just comes out dancing and we’re all like “AHHH…it’s Bad Bunny!!!”

No, we all stood still because it was never clear if we were going to get in trouble and lose our spot. They had done background checks and a social media scrub for everyone, so I think they knew that everybody was going to be generally on good behavior.

So anyhow, I’m standing there and a woman comes by and says it’s time to move for the cameras to come through. So my little pod moves, and we turn around and there is Ricky Martin!

Then we were done with our portion of the rehearsal. They told us to just hang out in the field or the stands while they ran through the rehearsal a couple more times. So we started walking off field, and then Lady Gaga just comes out of the tunnel!

There were all these emotional peaks and valleys where the first valley was seeing the costume and just being like…wait, what are we going to be doing?

And then we did one night of rehearsals with the dancers. We weren’t wearing the costumes, we were just standing in position and watching the dancers, and the dancing was so good.

On Wednesday, everybody had to wear the costume, and I think a lot of people were pretty overwhelmed with it. Everyone was like I hate wearing this suit. The suit hurts. But I’m just gonna do it.

But then every night you got to see all the performers come out again and it was always just like a little shot in the arm.

Then Thursday was probably the toughest because they wanted to do a full, properly timed rehearsal, which involved us pretending it was the second quarter of the game, standing in the tunnels. We thought we would only be standing there for a half hour, but we ended up standing for probably an hour and a half.

There were no chairs. It was super hot, no fans, no AC. A lot of people just sagged against the walls. A couple of people passed out. You could just see trees lying on the ground with medical support around them. That was definitely the low point for most of us.

But then we went out onto the field and did the rehearsal again. We could see the musicians and dancers and it was really fun.

They never told us much. Every night, we waited for an email to tell us when to come in the next day. So Saturday night before the Super Bowl, I find out I have to be in San Jose at 8:30am and I was like this is going to be brutal…but you just go and do it.

I wasn’t prepared to feel as ecstatic as I did for the halftime show. After all the rehearsals with Bad Bunny, I didn’t think there would be much difference in the actual performance. But then you’re out there, surrounded by people and there’s so much energy in the crowd and you’re getting to see the performance live right in front of you. It was the most amazing thing.

I obviously told my wife. It was a lot of time away, so I needed her support.

But then I had a lot of friends who were at the game in really nice seats, like box seats or at the 50 yard line. I couldn’t help but think if they knew I was doing this grind, they would be like what’s wrong with you? Why wouldn’t you just pay the money for these seats to see Bad Bunny?

So I didn’t know if I was ever going to tell anyone else about this.

But then it became this viral meme and everyone was so enthusiastic about it. I posted my grass photo on Instagram and so many people reached out to say how it was so cool and they wished they could have done it. An old co-worker even DMed me and said "what a flex".

So the story sort of flipped. This thing that was ridiculous, time consuming, and a gigantic pain in the ass was suddenly being lauded.

I did not get to meet Bad Bunny. From where I was standing, he was very close. But I did not get to say hello to him.

But he did address the grasses, along with all the other performers. He thanked us all and talked about how meaningful this stage and sequence of events was for him — he was telling a story that was very important to him and he really wanted as many people to be a part of it as possible.

He was really thankful all of us “grass people” were there because, as he put it, the more, the merrier. 🐰🐰🐰