Amazon is currently filming a Christmas movie in New York. I’ve been applying to work as an extra on it for months, but the casting company that handles the extras has blacklisted me. I keep trying, though (I’m an optimist, who still believes in Christmas Miracles). And I have a wardrobe full of festive holiday attire, so it seems like any open-minded casting company would leap at the chance to book me for this. Nonetheless, it seems like “Garret Wiley Casting” is having trouble finding people. You can tell that they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel because they recently changed their casting ads to specify that extras should “not bring weapons or firearms of any kind to work or fitting.”
Yes, really. You can see the full ad right here on CastingNetworks.com.
And this is in New York City. It’s not like actors stop by a wardrobe fitting while on their way to go duck hunting and might reasonably bring their shotgun with them on the subway.
If a medication has a warning label, no matter how absurd, you know there’s a reason. And, if an aquarium has a sign reading “Please do not have sex with the sharks” then you know there’s a reason for that sign. I figured there had to be a reason for the abrupt addition of “Please Do Not Shoot Santa.”
Sure, enough, scuttlebutt on the actors Facebook groups said that someone brought a gun to a wardrobe fitting. The term “a BG” means “Background Actor” and “HMU” means Hair’Makeup department.
At times like this, I think about the various actors who I have seen portraying the roles of criminals. Some are, like me, just actors who the casting companies find intimidating (Back when I was still willing to play male oles, Capital Casting frequently cast me as criminals).
But sometimes, the casting company is looking for authenticity when casting the role of “Outlaw Biker #6.”
In fact, Hunter S. Thompson actually mentions background actors several times in his book about the Hell’s Angels. Thompson describes one biker, Terry, as “hopelessly unemployable,” and “one of the most arrest-prone of all the Angels.”
Yet Thompson also says this man’s past jobs included working as a “Bit actor” in Hollywood, and that he was a member of Actors’ Equity.
Granted, Terry’s acting career was back in the 60’s, but I do wonder how the modern casting companies screen their actors to see if they’re the sort of person who might be “Strapped” while on the set of Law & Order.
This is the same casting company that was looking for actors willing to work with a live alligator a few months ago. These agencies won’t hire me, but they do hire guys who are or “Packin’ heat” while filming Holiday romantic comedies.
Later, in Hell’s Angels, Thompson describes a violently paranoid biker named Buzzard, as “a Hell's Angel straight out of Central Casting…” I’m not implying that any modern casting company has actually hired Buzzard, but Thompson’s reference proves that these companies have been renown for their two-dimensional typecasting as far back as 1966.
The casting company is looking for “New faces” for this movie, and it’s been in production for months, so they’ll have to cast me after they run out of crazy people.
For fun, here are some pics of me in festive Christmas attire, eagerly waiting for the casting company to exhaust its supply of gun-toting bikers.
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