One of my many cockamamie jobs over the years was selling roses on the streets of New Orleans during the 1970s. I had a little cart on the corner of Iberville and Bourbon Streets where I sold roses and bouquets of ludicrously priced posies to the inebriated. In homage to Tennessee Williams, I painted "Desire" on the front so I had "a pushcart named Desire." Every night I watched all the hookers, hustlers, drunks and derelicts pass by until morning. Parked next to me was the "Lucky Dog" man, who was grossly obese and had a large cart in the shape of a hot dog. He never once spoke to me for the first few months and always looked surly and unfriendly when I cheerily acknowledged him. He was a master of the layered look -- three sweaters, several socks on his hands and a few scarves wrapped around him.
There we stood, in silence side-by-side, night after night, as the New Orleans nightlife careened by. Then out of the blue one night, he piped up and said to me: "I was an extra in Airport." I was so shocked, I jumped back. What brought that on? "I played one of the screaming passengers on the plane," he added. "You were an extra?" I asked. "Yeah, for a few years at Universal Studios." With that, he settled back into his funk and never spoke another word to me again. A year later, I rented Airport and, sure enough, during one scene when the plane lurches forward, there was the hot dog man way toward the back, flailing his arms in mock horror.
Being an extra really is a thankless job -- you're basically just background filler; walking by on the sidewalk, sitting in a restaurant eating fake food and pretending to be engaged in conversation. The whole point is not to be noticed. It demands an ego-free agenda ... and hours of standing around in holding pens or on cold street corners waiting for your cue. Almost no one ever emerges from extra to star, though there have been exceptions: John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. But for the most part you are supernumeraries.
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