My previous article on this blog was posted the morning of May 6th. In it, I mentioned that a particular casting company had finally hired me as a stand-in. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but the day after that article went live, the same casting company booked me as an Extra for the first time in 2025. It was a big scene with 100 Extras in Times Square. Screen Actors Guild forces TV shows to give the first 25 slots to union members, so it was 25 of us SAG extras, and 75 non-union people. We spent most of the rainy ten-hour day in the “Holding area” where I got to speak with my non-union colleagues about their recent experiences with casting companies.
As always, people were complaining about the lack of work lately. And, as always, I seemed to be getting a lot less work than the people around me. One woman said she keeps a spreadsheet of all of her bookings, and that she had 17 days of work by May of last year, but only eight days this year. This was my third day of Extra work this year.
She was getting nearly three times as much work as me, and this was a slow spell for her.
An actor held an umbrella for me as we walked from holding to the set, he mentioned that he hadn’t been on Law & Order as often as usual. Me, I get about one day of work on Law & Order every two years. He was also sad that the FBI franchise wasn’t shooting. Apparently he was booked frequently on that franchise. I had been booked just once on it (My “Emergency Room Patient” scene back in February).
Several of the major casting companies have blacklisted me for complaining about how they treat transgender actors. Neither New York State, nor Screen Actors Guild have addressed this problem (Or even acknowledged that it exists).
But I did notice another transgender person in the crowd of non-union people. Two of us in a group of 100! Not bad. Maybe my current Blacklisting case with the NYC Commission on Human Rights was having a positive effect on this particular casting company.
And this new booking turned out to be a good gig. It had an afternoon call time, and the holding area was a nice hotel ballroom in Times Square. I could sleep late, and I didn’t have to pay for cab fare. Even though we started in the afternoon, the SAG members got our mandatory 15 minute breakfast break. Eggs cost a fortune (At the time of this writing in May 2025), so those free breakfast burritos are a generous fringe benefit.
But since it was the afternoon, I had to console myself with a free dinner. All of the SAG members got 15 minutes of paid break to eat as many cheeseburgers we could before we had to report to the set. While chewing my third burger, I found myself trying to calculate the price difference between beef per pound versus eggs per pound. I think I would have been better off with the eggs, but I can’t turn my nose up at a free cheeseburger.
As always, the non-union extras ate last, picking through the scraps left behind by the crew, and by SAG. We pay $3,000 to join the union, so every one of us is looking for a way to recoup that investment in eggs, and burgers, and hotdogs, and cans of soda, and candy bars smuggled from the snack table. Yes, people do bring tupperware containers to work in order to bring home leftovers. One gentleman went home with his pockets full of “Fun-sized” Milky Ways.
While waiting to get our costumes approved by the wardrobe department, I spoke to an older woman looked delighted just to be there. She was non-union, and she told me that this was her first time doing Extra work. In fact, it was her first time on a set.
It’s easy for us grizzled veterans to forget how amazing it is just to be filming a real TV show! And we take for granted the little SAG bonuses we get. I was paid a bonus of nine dollars because I brought a change of clothes for a second scene we were shooting. Plus fourteen dollars because were had to film outside in the rain. After all of these bonuses, and union overtime rules, I would take home about 50% more than my non-union friend for the same ten hour shift.
Then we joined a line of 100 people to see the handful of hair stylists. A Production Assistant walked down the line, pulling the SAG members out, and she escorted us to the front of the line. That’s another perk of being in Screen Actors Guild; we not only get paid more, and eat first, but we skip the lines for hair and makeup sometimes. Then, at the end of the day, we get signed out first.
I mumbled, “Sorry,” to the non-union gentlemen at the head of the non-SAG line. He smiled, and told me that he had just become eligible to join the union after playing a principal role in a movie. Today was his last day as non-union extra!
Next time around, HE’D be the smug, entitled jerk being ushered to the head of the line, eating his free breakfast burrito, and counting his $9 wardrobe bonus.
An older actor was talking to two young women who seemed new to the industry. They had asked him about the term “Walkaway lunch.” This is when the production doesn’t provide a catered lunch for the cast. We’re given an extra fourteen dollars in our paycheck, and told to go out and buy our own food.
Usually we’re warned in advance of this, and we can pack a lunch. Of course the pros know that the real way to game this system is to stock up on snacks from the snack table over the course of the day, then have granola bars and candy for lunch.
Being the entitled, lazy hustler that I am, I made sure to sneak a pack of Pop Tarts into my purse while at the breakfast table. I spent the first five minutes of lunch hour eating cold Pop Tarts. The next 55 minutes I was sound asleep in a diabetic coma.
I woke up when we were called back to set. Our group of fictional “Theatergoers” took shelter in an alley next to Hamilton’s stage door. It was a Monday night, so none of the shows were running, and we didn’t have to worry about crowds bursting out of the theaters.
While sheltering from the rain near the end of the night, a young woman told me how she had recently managed to get the three union roles necessary to join SAG. She asked my advice on whether or not she should join. I thought about it, trying to determine my own views.
I was getting paid a lot more than her. It was almost midnight and, if we worked past midnight, Paramount would have to pay an additional bonus on top of the usual SAG overtime rate.
And the SAG Foundation had paid my rent during the strike two years ago. That alone came out to more than the $3,000 initiation fee. And, you have to be in SAG to get the higher-paying jobs. If this show abruptly needed to upgrade an Extra and give one of us a line of dialog, they would probably pick a SAG member for that (And we’d get paid over a thousand dollars just to say one line). The extra $37 dollars from my wardrobe/rain/lunch bonuses today was nice too.
And - fun historical fact here - in the early days of the film industry, the movie studios weren’t required to feed the actors. Screen Actors Guild forced them to provide food eighty years ago.
I advised the young to join the union. At the very least so that she wouldn’t be bullied or harassed by people on set. But also for $37 and free Pop Tarts.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.