Adventures with Central Casting

Alright, just to recap, here is our to-do list. With the first four items checked off, it was time to register with Central Casting.

The next big movie you watch, check the credits. Chances are, Central Casting is listed; they are the most well-known background talent agency in the country. Background actors, also known as extras, are exactly what they sound like… they are all the people you see in a movie, but probably don’t notice. In fact, a background actor who draws attention is probably not doing the job right. And in places like L.A., the entertainment industry needs thousands of them.

To register to work as an extra with Central Casting, you need to arrive at their office before dawn, if you want to make it through the doors. They take 60 people per day (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday); if you’re number 61 in line, you’re just out of luck.

The day Ben went, he got there at 2 o’clock in the morning; he wasn’t taking any chance of being left out. He thought for sure he’d be the first person there, but there were already two others ahead of him. By the time the doors opened, a little after 9 am, there were over 150 people in line. Over 90 people were told to be there earlier next time. The early bird gets the job, I guess.

Once you’re registered, applying for jobs is an experience in and of itself. Let me talk you through their interesting system. What happens is that Central will post a job on Facebook and Twitter. In each job post, they ask for specific qualifications: African American women, age 25-35, size 6-8, 5’7″ tall, with boxing experience; or Caucasian men, 50’s or 60’s, pant size 42-44, under 6′ tall, gray hair, who play the sousaphone. And so on. Then they provide a phone number or email address where you can apply for the job.

Ben programmed his smart watch to alert him whenever a new job post goes up. As soon as he gets the alert, he checks the qualifications. If he fits the part, he gets on his phone right away to shoot off a quick email, or to call in. Sounds easy, right?

Well, remember how many people are registering each day? Multiply that by three days per week, and 52 weeks in a year, and you have nearly 10,000 people signing up as extras each year. And there are some people who have being doing it for years… for some people, it’s the peak of their acting aspirations, and they do it year round, full-time.

We have literally gotten an alert, called in two seconds later, and gotten a busy signal. It’s insane! Call in, get a busy signal, hang up and call again. Every once in a while, I’ll call on my phone, too; we figure it’s double the chance to get through, right? We call until we get through or until the machine says that the job has been filled.

Sometimes when you call, you learn the job was filled seconds after it was posted. Other times, it takes half an hour, and hundreds of calls, before you find out. In this modern world, I have no idea why they do it this way. For whatever reason, though, they do.

Once he gets through- if he gets through-, they look him up on their system, and either book him for the job, or tell him that he doesn’t fit what they’re looking for. If he’s booked, he gets another phone number to call the night before the job to receive all the specifics (what to wear, where to park, who to contact, etc).

Ben booked a job the day he registered, for the following day. We were so excited! He books as many days as he can now, whenever he isn’t going to auditions or other jobs. It isn’t always as easy as that first time, of course. Generally speaking he averages about 2-3 days a week.

He’s been to many different locations while working as an extra, from studios like Sony, Universal, Warner Brothers, and 20th Century Fox, to gorgeous beaches and Beverly Hills mansions. And he’s worked with people like Tony Curran, Cary Elwes, and Dwayne Johnson. He has loved it! He has been a police officer one day, and a dead soul the next. His daily life is quite the adventure!

One day, Ben’s instructions were to come to set wearing all black. His only black pants were the pants to his fancy designer suit, so that’s what he wore. Once he arrived on set, though, they ended up giving him a completely different wardrobe. This particular day, he was an officer on a spaceship, for the TV series “The Orville.” He changed in the dressing room into his new costume, then headed to the set, leaving his suit pants on a hanger.

At the end of the day, he went back to the dressing room to get changed… only to find his pants missing, and a pair of old Walmart dress pants, two sizes too small, in their place. It was probably quite a funny sight to see Ben running around the set in his boxer briefs looking for his dress pants. Sadly, they were long gone.

“Wait ’til you see what I’m wearing.”

He called me on his way home that night to tell me what had happened. When I told them the story, my Mom and brother were also curious, so we waited up together, chatting in the living room, and laughing about Ben showing up in naught but his knickers. Eventually he arrived, and bounced into the room… wearing plastic silver parachute pants. Apparently the costume crew had taken pity on him and decided he shouldn’t have to go home naked, so they’d found an old costume piece that wasn’t being used.

We all had a good laugh at his rotten luck and his expensive souvenir from the TV show. Fortunately, the suit shop where he bought the suit was able to help him replace his pants, and he learned an important lesson: don’t underestimate starving actors.

Another time, he was on the set of one of our favorite TV shows, “The Good Place.” He got to interact with some of the lead actors. I was thoroughly impressed. …I was also curious as to what happens in the next season! Bummer that he can’t tell me a thing about the episode’s plot. Not one bit. Confidentiality is important, I know, but sometimes I wish it wasn’t so… confidential. I’m even more excited than ever, though, to see the next season now. Usually, I don’t get to see him in the shows he’s in -I’d have to watch whole seasons with a fine tooth comb just to find the one moment he’s on screen-, so I’m super excited about this one!

Then there was the time that Ben’s call time was 4 pm. Night shoots are always interesting. This one was extra “fun,” because it was raining, and they were filming outside. After a couple hours, everyone was soaked through and completely cold. Most of the extras were grumbling. Not Ben! He was having a blast.

Around midnight, they sent most of the extras home, but they needed a few to stick around. The assistant director asked if anyone particularly wanted to stay; Ben volunteered, along with a handful of the others. Then the crew kept filming. And filming. And filming.

They didn’t realize how late it really was until they saw it getting light again outside. The sun was starting to rise! What a dedicated crew and director. Ben didn’t get off work until 8 o’clock in the morning, and then he still had a 2-hour drive home. He came in the door, kissed me “good morning,” then slept until dinner time.

We were pretty excited to get that paycheck! Background actors are paid for an 8-hour day, even if they’re only there for 15 min, which makes us happy. Thank you, actor’s union, for negotiating fair pay. If you think about it… they expect the actor to block off their entire day for them, so it is only fair that they pay them for the full day. Often, though, like with this shoot, they keep you past eight hours. This also makes us happy, because once you’re past eight hours, you get overtime pay at time and a half. Past ten hours you start making double time. So basically, we always hope that they keep him extra late. 🙂

One of our most exciting bits of news is that, on that rainy night shoot, Ben became eligible to join SAG-AFTRA, the actor’s union. When Ben goes in for a job he usually gets a blue-colored work voucher, because he is a non-union worker. Sometimes though, because the companies have to use a certain number of union workers, Ben will be paid as a union actor for the day. This means that instead of the blue voucher, he gets a yellow one. Non-union actors call these vouchers “golden tickets.” Once you have three of them, you’re eligible to join the union. We thought it would take Ben a year or two to become eligible; that’s what it takes most people. No joke… he was eligible in three weeks.

This is just the beginning of our crazy life; our wild adventures have just begun. You know you’re a parent, by the way, when a wild adventure consists of staying up all night. Ha! Honestly, I hope that someday our lives will be a tad more predictable… but for now, how fun is it to know that we’re never bored?!

Some weeks Ben is home quite a lot (because it’s a slow week for jobs). Others, he has 12-18 hour days all week long. The days that he’s home, he focuses on applying for auditions, calling in for more extra jobs, working out, and writing his own scripts.  He hustles constantly to find (or make) jobs, and to increase his skill set. He works so hard, every day, to provide for our family… and I couldn’t be more proud of my dear actor hubby.