Back in the saddle

Well, after being laid off from my regular job last week, I’ve decided to get back into doing extra work. After making sure I had all my photos updated and signing up with a fourth agency, I had my first day of work today on Grey’s Anatomy. I don’t watch that show (I think I saw one ep right after it started) but this was fun to work on. I’d thought I had gotten to all the major studios so far, but I guess not. As such, I wandered around looking rather lost until I finally made it to extras holding, after asking several people along the way. One thing that’s nice about doing hospital shows is the scrubs. They’re terribly comfortable, like pajamas. It’s too bad I can’t just wear them around normally. This time, I was not merely a nurse, either. I got a doctor’s jacket (which stated my name was J. Eberton M.D., though my ID badge gave a conflicting viewpoint) and blue scrubs, which I was told meant I was an intern. Hey, it kept me warm and made me feel more important, so I’ll take it. Extras holding was what looked like part of the hospital waiting area. Which was nice in that the chairs were arranged so that it was easy to have conversations. This is important, because chatting with the other extras is what takes up the vast majority of time. Fortunately, everyone was really nice. That’s one of the best things about doing extra work. The other extras are always so nice. It’s great to be constantly meeting all these new people. It very quickly gets to where you find yourself chatting and laughing with this small group of strangers as if you’re old friends—even someone as fairly shy as me. And everyone’s always so helpful in explaining and discussing things about the casting agencies, how things work on set, etc. Plus, you can hear some pretty interesting stories about what it’s like on shows. For example, I knew from the casting hotlines that both Two and a Half Men and Big Bang Theory don’t allow blondes on set. This is rather odd, is it not? Well, from what the extras were saying, there are different reasons for this. Apparently on Big Bang Theory it’s because the lead actress is blonde and had a huge ego and doesn’t want anyone upstaging her. On Two and a Half Men, apparently it’s because Charlie Sheen just got married. They say it’s not that he doesn’t like blondes, it’s that he likes blondes too much. Which is both hilarious and sad. “Sorry, you can’t work on this show because you might have sex with Charlie Sheen.” I admit, both of these reasons seem slightly far-fetched, but if you can offer a more realistic reason for the total banning of a certain hair color, I’d like to know. I ended up being used in two scenes for this episode, though I’m probably blurry in the background if I’m seen at all. The second was a simple walk down the hall, get something, walk back during a hallway dialogue scene with Katherine Heigle and some other people. Pretty standard. The first was just standing at an office counter looking busy with a chart so that there’s something in the background when a door opens/closes, if anything’s actually seen through the door. Nothing particularly exciting about either of those in themselves. But I was just so happy the whole time because I love being on set. It’s hard to explain exactly. It just makes me happy. Part of the fun is seeing the actors. As I said, I’m not a fan of this show, so that wasn’t exciting in itself (not like when I did House or Monk, for instance). Katherine Heigle was on Roswell, which I liked, but that still wasn’t all that exciting. I knew Sandra Oh is also on the show, so I wasn’t surprised to see her. From the way she interacted with some of the crew, she seems nice. What was really funny, though, was seeing someone I didn’t expect (because he’s a recent addition to the cast and, as I said, I haven’t seen it in some time). During that first shot, where I’m fake-note-writing, two of the actors come out of a room at the end of it (the scene is taking place in the other room). So while we were all standing around between shots, I noticed a tall, good-looking guy and thought to myself, “Hey, the redhead actor’s cute.” And so after several surreptitiously snuck glances at him for that reason alone, it came as quite a shock when I realized I recognized him, and I nearly laughed that I hadn’t caught it sooner. It was Kevin McKidd, the star of a show from a couple years ago called Journeyman which was sadly short-lived, but very good. (Really, such a good show.) Of course, he was blond in that show, which I’ll use as my excuse for not recognizing him sooner. And he’s Scottish, which is just . . . always worth mentioning. So then of course I had to force myself not to stare, though at one point he seemed to be blankly looking off in my general direction, so I gave him one of those fake not-really-a-smile smiles (you know, the kind that says, “I acknowledge your existence as a human, but that is all!” Haha, social skills for the win!), which he returned. Really, I do try to smile genuinely at people when I do these things, but I think at some point I’m afraid of being a bit too excited and smiling in a way that would freak people out. Those of you that know me well know that I don’t get freakishly excited about a lot of things, but like I mentioned, I really enjoy being on set. Even if it goes ten or twelve hours, I can still be bouncy from just being around the lights and the cameras and all the stuff going on. (I feel a bit like Guy Fleegman on Galaxy Quest. “I’m just happy to be here!”) Unfortunately, the shoot didn’t go into overtime (which would have meant we’d get paid more). I really wish this job paid more, because it’s super fun in many ways. But after such a long time of very limited social interaction, it is very nice to get out and actually talk with people and be around others. Oh, yes, and the episode number, for those that care, is apparently 5.23. I don’t know when it airs, but you probably won’t be able to see me anyway.

Sorry about the one big paragraph.  WordPress doesn’t like my formatting.