Late for my last day at the only job I’ve ever really liked, I woke in a pool of someone else’s sweat…and by sweat, I mean urine…
Extras Casting
by Drew Lyon
Little over a year ago, still unpacking from the move to Austin, I got my big break—a barely paid 80 hour-a-week internship as extras casting assistant on the HBO production, Temple Grandin. My duties consisted of perpetually highlighting the same required fields on the same form, explaining why, and how, to use ceramic hair rollers instead of foam for achieving the most authentic 50s wave and calling students or mothers mid-night begging them to wake even earlier. Superb.
9 pm the night before — she convinces me with unspoken words to put down the work phone, nightly call-time messages left undelivered, and flashback to a 90s hip-hop sing-a-long downtown at the Drafthouse. Between ‘Gettin‘ Jiggy With It’ and ‘Regulators’ my work and personal phones take turns dancing in pocket—I don’t feel a thing, tequila over mind, Mixalot over matter. Tomorrow is the last day of filming with background (extras). And for all intents and purposes, tomorrow is my last day, my last day on set and my first day on camera.
I don’t remember much between that last “Ice Ice Baby’ and the first monotone beep of my alarm clock, but I remember a little bit. I remember drunkingly seeking refuge from air conditioning under a fake down comforter. I remember cozying further under flannel sheets. I recall warmth flowing from a body beside. I see brief interludes of semi-consciousness spent plastered against the wall seeking respite on the shallow end of an olympic sized pool of sweat. A lot of fucking sweat. And I remember waking wet with only a tiny headache, no time to shower, barely time to dress, enough time to say goodbye and definitely insufficient time to peel back each layer of bed covering and investigate the final circumference of her oblong off-yellow sweat stain permanently marking my territory. Maybe later.
I arrive on set looking opposite of how I feel. I feel great. “Good mornings” exchanged right and left—universally recognized by crew and wholly adored by recurring extras–a perpetual whiplash of head nods. For the first time I have my ‘cool kid walking through high school hallway in slow motion’ moment. I lift aviator sunglasses and closed-mouth smile at my boss. If she’s mad about spending the last few hours recruiting and shuttling teens from a nearby high school to fill gaps I left last night, I don’t see it. All I see is a soft-lit reflection in the mirror from my fold out make-up chair.
We were terribly desperate. Even before last night’s abandonment of responsibility we were going to be short on bodies for today’s scene. That’s the only reason my roommate and I were ‘cast’ as college graduates. Through months of filming I emanated calculated indifference towards on-camera participation and I really didn’t believe to care. But as Mick Jackson, best known for directing a possibly pre-coke Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard, yells action and I’m shaking hands with someone from the Bourne movies not named Damon, I feel special. There I am, contributing in the most diminutive way, affecting on the most micro level, leaving totally indistinguishable traces on a film that will appear only on a small screen. But it’s finally appearing this weekend and I am pretty fucking excited.
The Other Side of the Mattress is Greener
by Her
So, I get the phone call from my dad, they’re filming some HBO movie across the street from our house and they need girls for the equine scenes. Well, though I am an actress, I generally steer clear from extras work, it’s thankless, long, boring, and devoid of any perks. Little did I know…I get the phone call, they no longer need horse back riders, and instead show up tomorrow at 9:00 am, oh and those red highlights have got to go. I still swear to this day that I was NOT told to sleep in curlers, that my hair would be styled in the morning. Or maybe it was midnight, I was at a bar and just had a bout of selective hearing. Sigh. Okay. Whatever, I can just dash back and forth between my parents house.
So I arrive on set, and though Drew is still in the urine free bed back in Austin, he gets a phone call: “One of your extras is here, no rollers, with highlights..” “Send her home”Now. To think. I’ve never been good at statistics, but to trace a year plus long history of someone who is now one of my most dear dear friends, back to one “What if?” is completely mind blowing. And here comes the saving grace…Some hair dresser, who I later find out is the wife of some super well known country band, my deux ex machina, says, “Let her stay, I’ll style her wig.” Gasp. “For all three days??” “Sure, come sit down honey.” Ah, southern hospitality..skip to:
the perfect date. The man who tried, unsuccessfully, to send me away (for the first, but not the last time) I boldly show off my rain man like knowledge of all 90′s rap lyrics at the Draft House, which amazingly get more and more extensive as the tequila flows…Morning.
Wait…I was just dancing. I time traveled. I have that surreal fuzzy feeling that comes with the pre-hangover. I stretch and reach over. Wet. He’s a sweater. No, no. Not a SWEATER, but a SWEAT-er. Gross. Ah, well, we all have our faults. Though I’m fuzzy, I have that exhilarating feeling when you’ve done something wild and naughty and can feel beautiful about it. And even on the floor, amongst the dregs of our drunken undressing, in my silver disco heels is even the key to the apartment. Sigh. What a perfect night.
I gather my things and slink through the parking garage, languidly get my phone, dial him and in my best sex kitten voice say, “Well, goodmorning.”
“Hi.” he says with a small awkward laugh. “Er..how are you feeling?”
“Wonderful.” Purr…”
“So you were pretty drunk last night?” The cad!
”Meh, not that drunk.” He was just as shit faced as I was!
”Well..I mean..you did pee all over my bed…”!!!??
”What? I did not.”……………QUOI?
Heart racing…desperately thinking back…did I? What did I dream about? No. I was a little sloppy sure, but WET THE BED? NEVER. I mean he was the gross sweaty one…Gasp. The sweat. Was that….me? “Oh. My. God. No.””Yea. I spent the whole night with my face pressed against the wall trying to avoid it, I even tried to push YOU out of it to be a gentleman.” Avoir sex kitten, hello pee girl. Here I am, with the extras casting assistant, who I have so carefully seduced through text message and he’s now spent the night in more than one of my body fluids. I’m not wild and beautiful Scarlett O’Hare with a dash of Pretty Woman, I’m a BED wetter. A young girl who can’t handle her liquor. I awkwardly stumble through the parking garage and the rest of the conversation, which is a cocktail of groveling, trying to be demure, and desperately trying to gauge his reaction. He is, of course the perfect gentleman. Helps me laugh it off, even allows me for the rest of the eternity of our friendship to leave the room when he changes his sheets because I still don’t have the courage to see the giant oblong stain on his mattress.
This story has a happy ending though; though I have yet to pee on him again, I’ve hopefully stained more than his mattress, and after a brief respite, we can be the best of friends again.
