A buddy of mine once told me that he didn't think there should be such a career as "actor." He felt all filmmakers should use ordinary citizens in all of their films, and that every ordinary citizen would be given the opportunity to appear in a film during their lifetime.As I was young, idealistic and really high at the time, it sounded like a great idea.
It seems the denizens of Tampa would wholeheartedly agree. The studio that's mounting a big-budget Bay-area production based on comic franchise The Punisher has invited interested parties to the Florida Aquarium for a shot at some screen time as extras. And the interested parties have come. I'm not all that great at guesstimating crowd size, particularly when said crowd is strung out in a line that would drive any carnival barker into a joy-coma, so let's just say there are googol people waiting for their close-up. (More responsible and accurate counts eventually put the number closer to 6,000.)
It's a sweltering summer Saturday. Blocks of warehouse-district side streets are lined with cars parked in all manner of dubious legality. Streams of pedestrians merge to form a river where Cumberland Avenue passes under the parking garage for the Aquarium, Port Authority and Channelside complex. The river flows across the large roundabout, further complicating an already dicey traffic situation — apparently Floridians understand roundabouts about as well as Brits understand the N.R.A. — and right up to the Aquarium's entrance. Where, naturally, its overexcited components are immediately directed to the back of a very long, very conspicuous line.
The call was announced as beginning at noon. It's now about a quarter after, and the line already approaches a quarter-mile in length. From its head at the Aquarium's entrance, it runs along the whole of the gargantuan building's side. It snakes across the road dividing the Aquarium and the Port Authority's impressive Terminal Three, then runs parallel to that gargantuan building's facade. Where Terminal Three ends, it continues on for the hundred-yard length of the parking lot. At the end of the parking lot, where the Aquarium's Blade Runner-meets-the-Sydney-Opera-House architecture can officially be referred to as "way the hell over there," the line is forced to double back on itself, five times, in 50-yard increments.
And man, it's hot. A minority of former Boy and Girl Scouts has come prepared, toting umbrellas and small coolers, but there are going to be a whole lot of folks sporting a sunburn, or maybe even a hospital wristband, by 4 p.m.
They couldn't care in the least. It's a small price to pay for what a surprising number of this crowd undoubtedly perceives as the first step toward celebrity. Some of them are easy to spot. They're not the dudes in tattooed groups here on a lark, or the obviously hardcore Punisher fans in comic-hero tees, or the punk-haired kids with studiously bored expressions, or the balding guys in Hawaiian button-ups. They're the giggling teenage girls in groups of three dressed like they've borrowed their older sisters' clubbing clothes. They're the ones talking loudly about their last gig as an extra, and which actors did a lot of extra work before landing a breakthrough role, and exactly what dailies are. They're the pretty, solitary young women with a portfolio in the crook of one arm and an intently distracted thousand-yard stare. They're the tall guy in expensive black dress pants who looks a bit like Joe Millionaire, and the lady sporting a black bustier under her open pastel blouse, and the standard ostentatious eccentrics who show up for anything they think will draw a TV news crew.
These are the people who know in their heart of hearts that their talents deserve the attention and adoration of the world. They just need that one little "in."
And maybe this is it. Maybe, after getting into the Aquarium and discovering that the production staff is far more interested in getting everyone's phone number and photo than in knowing who was a runner-up in their community college's talent competition — maybe they will get a callback. Maybe, during the 13-hour days doing crowd scenes with 2,000 other people, "someone" will notice them. Perhaps "someone" will offer them a small speaking role or, if not, keep them in the back of "someone's" mind for a future job. And that will be that, because they are unswervingly sure of their ability to go all the way to the top.
I feel exactly the same way about myself.
But, man, it's hot.
I probably should've eaten. Or re-hydrated when I woke up this morning. Something.
An enterprising young man drags a cooler out of his car and announces he's got water and soda for sale. He is immediately mobbed, and will probably produce movies someday as opposed to being an extra in them.
Having negotiated two of the line's snaky switchbacks in the last hour, I bow out, shaking and light-headed. Under Terminal Three's shady overhang, those battling heat exhaustion loll against the wall or sprawl on the concrete. There are a couple of female tweeners, a couple of excruciatingly thin senior citizens, and me.
After an extended period of recovery and refueling, I head up to the front of the line, where 32-year-old Laurie Jones and 29-year-old Marlon English are filling out their contact-information forms and preparing to head inside. They've been here since around 10:30 this morning. I ask them why.
"Because it couldn't hurt," says Jones. "You never know — it could lead to something bigger."
English makes fewer bones about it.
"'Cause I feel like I'm a star," he replies with a winning grin.
And therein lies the flaw in my buddy's utopian notions toward filmmaking. This is America. Of course we all want to be in the movies. But if given a choice between a guaranteed appearance in one flick with a bunch of other nobodies, and a one-in-a-million shot at millions of dollars, tabloid headlines and household-name status, well, we'd really much rather be stars.
Scott Harrell can be reached at 813-248-8888, ext. 109, or by e-mail at scott.harrell@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Jul 31 – Aug 6, 2003.