I work in New Haven, but I skipped out early today in order to participate in the Open Casting Call for extras for Indiana Jones IV: Not Yet Titled.
I stood in line from about 1500 until a bit after 1900, outside for the first 3.5 hours of it. Why? Because I'm trained as a goddamn archaeologist. The first movie came out the same month I was born. Because if I didn't at least try, I'd kick myself. I mean, they're filming in New Haven! Major movie! Places I work in!
The characters surrounding me were:
- A relatively non-descript, perfectly friendly, woman in her 20s.
- An heavy older woman who was back in school and carried an umbrella in the sun. Both of these disappeared at one point when the lines were broken up a bit more.
- Temporarily present: Guy with proper headshot, but no SAG card. He left after an hour because he parked at a meter. Idiot.
- Tall black woman who works at a local coffee shop, but just got back from doing a play in Scotland
- Bouncy 'Didn't have anything better to do' Biology grad student at Yale. Perfect single-serving friend.
- Crazy artist woman.
- Also present: a few happy cops - happy because they were being paid basically to watch a line that was full of calm people and occasionally move us away from driveways. Also, one of them seemed gayer than Tuesday at BAR; not that that's a bad thing, but it was just so obvious. Not quite Ltd Dangle level, but close.
Now, let me explain about the crazy woman. She is an artist. She talked to herself a bit. She was wearing electric blue leggings, a tye-dyed t-shirt, and beaded moccasins. The local indier-than-indie paper interviewed her. She redeemed herself a bit when the Scientologists came, because she professed her severe dislike of them as well, but I can't stand people who talk in the particular way she was (announcing obvious events.)
We get a little speech from the cops at one point - don't block the driveways or the business entrances, and SAG members and UCONN/SCSU cheerleaders (???) could go up to the front and be expedited.
Yeah, the Scienos came, giving us all - a captive audience - Dianetics fliers. Fuck that shit. I am perfectly happy to, as Mitch Hedberg said, throw that away for you. I know it's your job. Except for religious fuckers. Especially Scienos. I hate them with all the depths of my dirty little heart. I told him I already belonged to a cult. "We're not a cult."
Now, what I should have said was "You are in Germany, and they know something about crazy people who start groups." Ah, l'esprit d'escalier - I found these words a minute later. What I said instead was, "Go away."
Anyhow, that broke up the wait a bit. Then we waited some more. I forgot to get water, because I'm an idiot.
A bunch of guys ahead of us sent one of their party out for sandwiches. People were skipping out for a minute or two to get bottled water or drinks, but I generally couldn't see where they were going. A guy looked like he wanted to set up one of the ubiquitous Yale area snacky carts, but the cops told him he couldn't. At one point, the local restaurants started handing out fliers. Kudeta (pronounced, yes, 'coup d'etat'; I don't make 'em up, people) had a very friendly girl out - I was actually somewhat inspired to eat there, although only for lunch or appetizers - who came back later and was actually delivering to the line. I saw other places following suit a bit later.
I open my bag of trail mix, but only eat sparingly. I have no water. I do have a hat, and when the sun is particularly glaring, I wear the hat.
Near the end, we get yellow sheets to fill out. Contact info, then our measurements (including glove, for women, and hat, for men - none of them know their hat size), a warning that all males will get 1950s style haircuts, and three somewhat unexpected questions:
1. Have you ever played football? At what level?
2. Have you ever been a cheerleader? At what level?
3. Do you have a dog? Breed?
I do have a dog, or rather, my parents do. He isn't the best trained, though, so let's hope that isn't part of a callback in my future.
I put down my occupation as anthropologist, which would please my theory professor immensely. I tell a few stories about digging up bricks, and what Connecticut soil does to human bones. (Makes them gross and rubbery.)
Eventually we get inside; inside is a conference room at the Omni. We sit on conference chairs that are more comfortable than the conference chairs at the last one I went to. Maybe I'm just more grateful. I talk to bio grad student a bunch, about war, the service versus industrial economy, mitochondria and diabeetus, the rise of agriculture, etc.
We queue again. A woman staples our pictures to the back of our yellow sheets.
We end up in another small conference room, where we hold up our sheets and they take a digital photo; they have three cameras going at once. They seem to have gotten more efficient as the line moved, which we realized when we were waiting.
That's it. We leave. I say goodbye to the Bio student and walk across the green, where I actually run into the actress/coffee woman and say hello. I'm walking home; she's parked by the shop, which I walk by on one of my routes home.
We wish each other good luck and I walk until I hit a fancy grocery. I buy a massively overpriced sandwich and a slightly unpleasant soda -
Boylan's Cane Cola - if you ever want to know what drinking a spice cabinet is like, there you go. Still, I finished it, and it sucked less at the end, like that review says. I really needed something refreshing, though, and that wasn't it. I need my bubbles. That is why I am drinking a delicious unflavored seltzer right now.
That's it. Whoo, took me almost an hour to type this up. Anyhow, that's my experience lining up in hopes of being an extra. Now you'll be prepared if it ever comes up in your area.
