So you think you want to work in TV?
I'm not an aspiring actor with romantic notions of being in front of a camera. I'm a journalist who was working on the West Coast when I learned that the FX drama "Sons of Anarchy" needed background actors.
For take-home pay of $58 and near abuse, I stumbled into one of the most interesting days of work I’ve ever had. I spent eight hours in blue jeans in 100-degree sun, was sneered at by catering, and endured bathroom segregation. (The nice, close ones were for the cast and crew, not “background.”) I loved it anyway, but probably not enough to do it again.
"Sons of Anarchy," in case you don't know, is a drama about life in an outlaw motorcycle club. The club has its own moral code — they run guns and a porn business but, until this season, drew the line at running drugs. Women are strippers or porn stars or general chattel, with the exception of two notable female characters. It's "The Sopranos" on two wheels.
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As basic cable, FX does not pay what a premium channel might to produce a show. Executive producer Kurt Sutter aims for big-production scenes despite the relatively small budget. Yet in many ways what “Sons” does is on par with anything HBO did with “The Sopranos.” Industry insiders say its budget is well below $2 million per episode in its fourth season; “The Sopranos” cost that in 1999, in its first season, then its costs skyrocketed. For “Sons,” the price covers the expense of a large cast of principal actors (and doubles), use of firearms and pyrotechnics, and detail-laced scripts.
Episodes are filmed in a seven-day cycle, plus three days of prep time, according to people on set. Many dramatic series are filmed in eight days, plus prep time.
"Sons" has hired people from "the life," including motorcycle enthusiasts, strippers and porn stars, as extras and even cast members. The call for authenticity spawned an agency called Jim's B List, which fills the void for those specialty actors, whereas Central Casting provides more conventional background actors.
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I arranged my day through Central Casting. I’d be an extra on Episode 4, in which the motorcycle club’s adventures take them to a motorcycle show in Arizona. (It was broadcast last week.) A recorded message instructed all background actors to go the next day to San Clarita, 35 miles north of Los Angeles.
The actors cast as bikini models were to arrive at 9 a.m. “in full makeup, looking beautiful, gorgeous and classy,” the call said. They should bring several color options for bathing suits but no thongs. The “meth addict” was to wear Dickies and a wife-beater T–shirt.
I had teamed up for the ride with a union background actor, Neil Ruddy. We were going to play bike show attendees. The instructions recommended jeans for us. We were not to wear shorts, despite it being summer. Further, the recording had said to bring three changes of clothes, so I was lugging a rolling suitcase.
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Ruddy had worked on “Sons of Anarchy” several times and stressed that it was a hardworking production. Often gigs like this require a lot of sitting, he said, but we’d probably be kept busy all day.
The life of an extra can be interesting but tough, he warned.
“We’re the lowest of the low,” he said cheerfully. In cynical Hollywood parlance, extras are “human props.”
9:15 to 10:30 a.m.: On the set
There were two production assistants at the church parking lot where we’d been directed. One talked on his walkie-talkie while the other pointed to where we should park. Another PA shuttled us down to base camp about a half-mile away. Tents and trailers for the actors were set up there next to a craft-service food station. Union rules require food be provided every six hours, a nice perk for a minimum-wage gig.
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Soon a line of extras formed to check in. I’ve never seen that many tattooed bald men. All told, I counted 42 people. Everyone I spoke to was friendly, although I steered clear of the guy with the white-supremacist T-shirt.
Some offered advice when I told them I was new. The best bit involved the restroom: Use it now.
Within five minutes of my return from the air-conditioned restroom on wheels, a PA laid a few ground rules. We were not to use the bathrooms near the trailers where we were waiting. We’d have to take the shuttle to where we’d be filming, which was a half-mile away. And no photographs, or we’d be asked to leave immediately.
I had seen Ron Perlman, who plays the murderous Clay Morrow, tough-guy head of the Sons club, gently walking his Jack Russell when we first pulled up in the van. Now I noticed three of the principal actors standing by the food, talking and laughing, dressed in wardrobe leather. Nobody paid them any mind. Paying too much attention to the actors is poor form.
10:30 a.m.: Wardrobe
The PA told us to go to wardrobe, which was a big truck on the other side of the craft service. There a man stood on the back of the truck looking down at us. He told us to line up in front of him, single file. With a finger wag he signed off on people’s looks. He stopped at me. “What else you got?” he asked.
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I had arrived in a white tank top, tan capris and sandals. I had hoped to get around the no-shorts rule, but no such luck. I went into a narrow, air-conditioned room and changed into blue jeans and a brown tank top. “That’s better,” he said.
From there we were transported to the set, which was a parking lot with the backdrop of a building where the motorcycle show was being held. The Sons would be conducting business there. Antique cars and tricked-out motorcycles were arranged as backdrops.
The second assistant director explained the scenes. We were to mill around as people attending the show.
11 to 12:45
Ruddy and I were given O’Doul’s nonalcoholic beer for props and lined up in front of the building. We stood in the sun while the principal actors rehearsed a short distance away in the shade of a concrete retaining wall. A man with a megaphone took pity on us and waved us over to shade.
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By then, Charlie Hunnam, who plays the central character Jax, was in the mix.
Jax struggles with the righteousness of club life. This isn’t true for his mother, Gemma, or his stepfather, Clay, laying the framework for the drama. Katey Sagal, who won a Golden Globe in 2010 for the role of Gemma, wasn’t on set that day. Sons women don’t go on road trips.
After about 20 minutes of rehearsal, a quick choreography for bike show attendees was laid out. The bikini models passed out pink bike-show fliers. The O’Doul’s flowed.
Then the commands started and repeated: Background! Rolling! Action! Background! Rolling! Action!
Ruddy, myself and another extra were to walk on cue toward the principal actors while they spoke dialogue. Other extras were walking or standing as though attending a motorcycle expo.
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Meanwhile, it was getting hot out there. A general malaise started to take shape, something that did not escape the attention of our handler: “Look alive! You’re having fun! You’re at a motorcycle show!”
By 12:30 I needed a trip to the building bathroom and decided to make a run for it. Just as I got the door, I heard them shout — “Background!” — and I ran back just as cameras started rolling. When that take was finished, I again set off for the bathroom only to hear the background call again. I again ran back, this time to Ruddy’s loud laughter.
Finally they finished the scene and told us to break.
12:45 to 3:30
Earlier in the day, I had gone to get water from the craft service, the food people, but a snarling woman in charge said it was for crew and cast only, "not background."
The same thing had happened to several others during the steaming morning. A veteran extra explained that they often kept beverages and snacks for background actors separate from those for the cast and crew. But on this set there was no separate-but-unequal area for the extras. The seeds of a mutiny had started to take root until someone made Snarling Woman provide the human props a continuous source of water.
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In the short-lived uprising, we extras bonded as soldiers might. My favorite new friend was “Chopper Doll,” another first-time extra there more for the intrigue than the work. She had ridden her custom motorcycle, a Big Bear Chopper Merc 300. A businesswoman based in Orange County, she said she knew a number of motorcycle enthusiasts who had appeared on the show.
“It’s given some people work who needed it,” she said.
California’s minimum wage is $8 per hour, higher than the federally established $7.25. Chopper Doll earned slightly more, garnering a check for $84 for the day, before taxes, thanks to the “bump” for having her own motorcycle. Ruddy, as a union hire, was paid $139 for the same time.
If any of the extras made it onto Episode 4, my money was on Chopper Doll. She was hard to miss. At one point, Tommy Flanagan, who plays Chib, came over to admire her bike. Chopper Doll pulled out her phone and snapped a picture, in clear violation of the PA’s instruction and forever securing my admiration.
It was hard work all around. That was true from the lowliest PA to the episode’s director, Bill Gierhart. The monitors, where directors watch the performances as they will look on the screen, were inside the building, which meant Gierhart had to run back and forth.
While extras and crew languished in the sun, so too did Perlman, Hunnan and the other principal actors. Yes, they had PAs standing at the ready with cold water and wide Hollywood umbrellas to shield them whenever the cameras stopped. And yes, they did make a bit more money.
But we’re talking about six hours in unyielding sun in wardrobe leather. And, after the expo-attendee extras were released, the rest — including the main actors — worked for five more hours, according to people who remained on.
3:30 to ‘release’
By now, any novelty was long gone. The next scenes involved more extras walking up and checking into the show, then milling around. One version featured motorcycles pulling up. I lost track of how many times we did this scene. I think everyone did, because the grumbling blotted out any ability to count.
Most of us had turned red from the sun by now, but the day was winding down. We were soon released and shuttled back to base camp. Craft services had put out plenty of new food, from London broil to a dozen kinds of salad. I got a plate and sat down at a table next to the one occupied by the principal actors, who were also taking a break.
Perlman and Hunnam were sitting with Flanagan and Mark Boone Jr., who plays Bobby Munson. Theo Rossi, who plays Juice, was nearby. I heard an English accent and realized it was Hunnam, who until that point I had assumed was American.
Perlman and Hunnam began discussing whose character was toughest. Hunnam, serious, said Jax was the toughest. Perlman, more serious, asserted that his character was the real bad arse, seeing as how Clay had been special ops in Vietnam.
Right about then, Gierhart, the director, walked up.
“You guys really delivered the goods today,” he said to the actors. “In the heat — in leather and cuts — you really came through.” They all nodded thank-you. Boone said it was a tough shoot.
Then, seemingly in character, Boone repeated the statement again — with the f-bomb thrown in for emphasis. Gierhart nodded and walked away.
It was a wrap.
Jordan is a Hollywood outsider and a freelance writer based in Atlanta.
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