Steve Hofstetter, Comedian - Download your free comedy album now!
Text STEVE to 484.214.0743 (USA or Canada) to get show updates
The Column

Extra, Extra, Extra Long Time
5/144/04

I have met a lot of people who say that they're actors. But the only acting they're doing is pretending to be an actor.

Have I acted? Yes. Am I an actor? No. Aside from some school productions, my parts have consisted of four extra roles (one of them unpaid), and a fifteen minute independent film. I have been a party guest, a crime scene onlooker, a concert-goer, a pedestrian, and a guy who gets his butt kicked. I was also on an episode of Ricki Lake, during which I was paid to make fun of people. The only role I ever play is myself. So if I thought I was really an actor, I'd be, well, playing myself.

This weekend, I shot two scenes in "Synergy," a forthcoming movie from Universal that stars Dennis Quaid along with a very well cast red-headed blurry thing in the background. I, with the 200 other people getting paid virtually nothing, was an extra. I was furniture with a mouth. This was not my big break.

But for the same crazy reason that draws people with no acting skills into acting, a lot of the people there thought that this was it. They brought headshots and did breathing exercises and talked about how they were hoping that this movie would be some good face time. As if a crowd scene at night in front of Madison Square Garden is going to give anyone good face time.

We were inconsequential. We were cattle. So much so that the area in which the extras wait between scenes is called "holding."

I felt bad for these people. They sat there expecting to get famous, while all the rest of us expected was $75 and a free meal. But some "actors" thought the director would come into holding, which he never does, and say, "Hey there. I like the cut of your jib. I'm going to make you a star. Start thanking the academy, baby, you're on your way."

It is true that every once in a while, one of the production assistants moves people up in a scene. It happened to me this weekend. Instead of walking in the background behind five other people, I was placed behind just two. On the way home, I stopped to buy some polish for my Oscar.

The delusions espoused by some of the cattle were hysterical. I heard some discussing how they were hoping to parlay roles like this into more feature work. Roles like what? Pedestrian #168?

One anecdote illustrates what level we were. When the staff brought out some food, one woman pushed her way up to the front of the line and started filling her plate with as much food as she could grab. A gentleman smiled at her and said, "hungry, huh?" The woman snapped at him, while still taking more food.

"Look, we all hungry," she said. "I hungry, you hungry. Don't say you ain't hungry. I just being real. Don't fake the funk. You gotsa be real."

My point is that this crazy woman was getting paid just as much as the rest of us to be in this movie.

I have fun doing extra work. And it'd be cool if I got any real gigs – but the two are mutually exclusive. Extra work is not acting. It's passing time and making a few bucks.

I know someone who is pretty good at plumbing. He constantly fixes stuff around his house. Occasionally, he helps his friends with projects. Someone even gave him a twenty for doing a great job. Does this make him a plumber? No.

I don't play softball and expect a scout to sign me to a minor league deal. I don't make pasta and wait by my phone for the call from Emeril. I don't talk about politics at a party and expect to win the Democratic Nomination. So why can so many people who have never had a line call themselves actors?

Real actors impress the hell out of me. Fake actors annoy me to no end. They should annoy you, too. Next time someone says they're an actor, find out if their greatest role involves the phrase "you have to look for me."

Anyone can do extra work. ANYONE. Look up an extra agency online, call them about an "audition," and pay the fee they ask for. It's that simple. Go for it – maybe it'll be your big break.

At one point during the shoot, a production assistant came over and took three people to be in direct line of the camera, just over Dennis Quaid's shoulder. One of them turned to the others and said, "this is it!" As the rest of us started laughing, I yelled, "don't blow this!" and sang Eminem.

You might think that's mean, but anyone that delusional needs to be grounded. And I was desperately trying not to fake the funk.

I mean, I gotsa be real, right?

Archives
*Paris Hilton is No Mother Theresa
*Putting the "Fan" in "Fanatic"
*Thinking Man: Happy New Year
*Jewzapalooza
*I'm Listening
*Punky Brewster Scares Me
*Don't Get Smart With Me
*Checking Out a Check Up
*Yeah, Thanks
*Steve Hofstetter is Your Friend
*Post Halloween Wrap-Up
*My Letter to Me
*The Night the Heat Went Off
*Turn That Crap Off
*You Might Be a Redhead If
*To My Future Children
*Shine Your Shoes, Mista?
*Flying Forward
*DotCom Dating Dish
*Paging Paige Page
*Watch While You Eat
*You Have Got to Be Kidding Me
*Come Home, Rachel I. K'Benjamin
*Get Out Of My Bathroom
*Subway Going Under
*Driving Forces
*Singles Anonymous
*Know When to Fold Em
*The Mirth of America
*Also Known As
*Smooth Criminal
*What That Mass Email Really Said
*Dude, Where's Your Car?
*Thinking Man: Can't We All
*You Might Be a Redneck
*A Nice Hawaiian Punch
*100,000 Friends
*Mine is Bigger Than Yours
*Good Answer
*T Stands for Terrible
*I Love You Guys
*Mitch, All Gone
*Birth of a Hate Mail Archive
*Never Do Today What...Ooh, Shiny
*Can You Hear Me Now?
*Fast Food, Slow Digestion
*Homeland Security, Eh?
*Quality Training Purposes
*The Show Went On
*Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?
*Putting My Foot Down
*Breaking the Chain Mail
*Happy Valmochrismaweenygiving
*Mr. Clean's Illegitimate Brother
*The Quest For 10,000 Friends
*Forgetting Paris
*Magnetically Challenged
*New Year's at the Barefoot Boogie
*Instant Carma's Gonna Get Me
*The Biggest Loser
*Steve vs. Kentucky
*Gone in a Flash
*How to Destroy Your Car
*Ghouls, Goblins, and Candidates
*My Freedom From Your Freedom
*Drive Unto Others
*Please Don't See This Movie
*I Love The Clip Shows
*Column of Atonement
*Happy Anniversary, Sugarhill
*Life, 9/11, and the Interstate
*Your Band Sucks
*Spending Wisely
*The Blind Dating the Blind
*Grilled Cheese With a Side of Hip Hop
*The Drive to 25
*Are You There Margaret? It's Me, God.
*Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House
*Seacrest! Out!
*Harder Than You Think
*Glad To Be Here
*Thought for Food
*Feeding the Meter
*She's Ready For Her Close Up
*Paging John Hughes
*Excusing America's Gas Problem
*Extra, Extra, Extra Long Time
*The Finals Countdown
*Your Friends and Mine
*The Future Mrs. Bueller
*Toasting Not Toasting
*A Tall Order
*Snaking Your Engine
*My Hair is the Color of Tomato Soup
*The Solace System
*You Say Potato
*It’s Getting Less Cold in Here
*This is Not a Virus
*Pitchers and Catchers
*Another Night Not at the Movies
*Higher and Higher
*To Write A Wrong
*They Call it Super for a Reason
*Imagine All the People
*Lost Wages, Nevada
*This Just In
*Why Are All My Stands Red?
*For Whom the Wedding Bell Tolls
*Silent One Day Sale, Holy One Day Sale
*I Want To Be That Guy
*Felicity Doesn't Always Mean Happiness
*That Time of Year
*My Cranberry Sauce Looks like a Can
*The Legend of Fat Dead Steve
*Two Beldings in One Building
*Happy Halloween From Happy Valley
*Three Stations and Nothing On
*15 Shots of Nostalgia
*Here's To the Dancing Guy
*Teaching an Old Dog New Sticks
*If You Could Choose Just One Dumb Question...
*Obligatory Pun on The Word Tired
*I've Grown Accustomed to Your Wet Nose
*What Do You Want For Your Birthday?
*What a Long, Strange Trip
*Open Letter to My UPS Man
*That Better Be Your Foot
*The Abandoned Lot is Always Greener
*Putting Down the Pieces
*Take One Down, Pass It Around
*Here, You Throw This Away
*Being Green at the Box Office
*Who Wears Short Shorts?
*America is an Okay Place to Be
*You Can't Stop the Rain
*Don't Feed the Alpha Males
*Don’t Sweat It
*The Special Plate Blues
*You Deserve It
*The Return to Popcopy
*They're Real, and They're Spectacular
*Keeping Your Prom Misses
*Guerillas in Our Midst
*That Weird No Bread Holiday
*The Ballad of the Buttless
*Something About Being Twenty-Something
*Have You Seen My Cell Phone?
*War, Huh, Yeah, What Is It Good For?
*Leggo My Ego
*I'm a Spazz, You're a Spazz
*Can I Please Keep My Pants?
*Engaged in Conversation
*Welcome to PopCopy
*Hold Me Closer, Tiny Bathroom
*My Two-Bedroom Furbee
*All’s Fare in Love and Daytona
*Open? Shut Them
*I Am Everyday Pimple
*Here Comes the Judge Show
*When, Praytell, Were The Days of Auld Lang Syne?
*What Are You Up To This Weekend?
*The Waiting is the Hardest Part
*A Night Not at the Movies
*Funny, You Don’t Look Flu-ish
*Does This Baby Come With Airbags?
*When The Hogan Family Was Still Valerie
*Blue (Haired) Tuesday
*In Loco Parents
*Moving Is Like A Vaccuum: It Sucks
*Thou Shalt Not Save the World and Get the Girl
*Like Oil and Stuff That Hates Oil
*How to Get Hatemail
*Fungi, Octopi, What’s the Plural of Bus? (Part I
*Fungi, Octopi, What’s the Plural of Bus? (Part I
*It Happens to the Best of Us
*Talking To A Piece of Junk Mail
*When You Can’t See the Forest for the Trees
*ICFS Disorder and Celebrity Kid Growth
*Electricity and Other Things They Cut Off
*Goodbye, New York, Goodbye
*La La La-la La La, Sing a Happy Song
*What To Do at Work Besides Work
*Why is This Column Different From All Others?