Living as a Corpse
It’s 4:00 am, and I’m running on less than two hours of sleep. At 10:00 pm the night before, I got a last-minute request to be an extra for a TV show, and I decided to take the job, despite the 5:00 am call time in Brooklyn. An elderly man is sitting at the bus stop with a huge rolled-up rug and box on his lap.
“Hey there, you can sit by me,” he called out. I ignored him, while I went to the bus kiosk to scan the QR code to see when the bus would arrive.
“Do you have an app?” he yelled.
“I’m looking for when the bus is coming,” I replied.
“Is it almost here?” he asked.
“Three minutes away,” I said.
“Well, that’s good,” he said. “Do you live around here?”
I gave an affirmative grunt. Remember, it’s 4:00 am and I’m exhausted.
“How do you afford to live around here?” he wanted to know.
“Husband,” I said.
He laughed and then asked me what my astrological sign was. I told him and asked him what his was, but then he wanted to know if I was from China. “Korea,” I said. That got him started on this long story about when his dad was in Korea and he brought these souvenirs home and how as a kid he would get beat with a belt if he touched them. Finally, the bus arrived, and I got a seat in the back, while he sat right next to the front door and continued for the entire route to have a very happy conversation—with himself. When the bus got to my stop, which was the last one, I bolted as quickly as I could to the subway platform, where thankfully my only companions were the rats squealing along the tracks. Two trains later: filled with construction workers going to their jobs at the crack of dawn, a few women coming home from a late night of partying, a couple of guys spread out on the seats catching a warm nap, and one woman wearing what almost looked like a cosplay outfit; plaid skirt, platform shoes, braids, and no jacket, and I was in Brooklyn. I gotta say, you really don’t know a city until you walk the streets at 4:00 am.
This was my fifth background job, the third I’ve done since living in NYC, and by far the largest. Hundreds of us were directed to a massive warehouse waiting for wardrobe, hair, makeup, and props, before we’d even get on the set, which didn’t happen till 9:00 am. I can’t give details of my jobs before they air, but three of them have been tv shows, one a movie and one an ad. I’m pretty good as an extra because I’ve mastered the art of following simple directions and doing it over and over. No method acting for me.
The best part of this kind of work, apart from the flexibility, is the people I meet. I’ve come across many for whom doing this is their first and probably last time, and some who have made it their full-time job. When I told a few of my fellow cast mates that my goal is to play a corpse on Law-and-Order SVU, the usual response isn’t laughing but dead seriousness. “It’s a horrible gig,” one said. “You lie on the ground, often covered in ‘trash’ and it’s always cold.”
“Yeah,” said another, “The closest I’ve come to that is playing a shooting victim on the subway,” she proceeded to show me a picture on her phone, sure enough she was covered in blood on a subway seat, “that was a ton of fun,” she added. During my latest gig I met a fellow background (that’s what we’re called, not actors, but background) who has possibly worked on every show filmed in NYC: Mrs. Maisel, Law and Order (all three!), Sex in the City, John Wick, The Gilded Age and Succession to name a few. Today we were playing journalists, which gave us a legit reason to sit around and scroll on our phones during the scene. I had all sorts of questions, about joining the union (SAG), when we’d get lunch, and what was the best and worst costume she had to wear.
So far this is my worst costume. I’m not a fan of bucket hats.
The days are long, usually 10-12 hours, the money is no better than working at Trader Joes, and it’s most likely I won’t be seen in any of the shows I’ve done, but where else do you get to hear gossip about actors (Keanu Reeves is truly a nice guy), get to see different parts of the city that’s closed off to everyone else, like I did during an overnight shoot in Chinatown last month, and have a bunch of crew clap for you when the shift is done?! Whether it's finishing or starting at 4:00 am, I plan on working my way up to playing a corpse, which I guess is one way to make a living.