Many people in Victoria know me as the long-time manager of the downtown Long & McQuade music store. I retired recently after a 40-year career.
Fewer people realize that, for many years, I was “the man in back.”
For decades, my side gig was working as a background performer (sometimes known as an “extra”) in film and television. It’s been tremendous fun. Along the way I’ve rubbed shoulders with a few celebrities — and collected my share of stories.
On my days off from Long & McQuade, I did background work in dozens of movies and TV shows locally shot. I did this for more than 30 years — I still do, in fact.
Most of these were filmed right in Victoria, although I did once work on a Hallmark Christmas movie in Whipple Tree Junction and another in the Shawnigan Lake area.
I’ve worked with a few big names such as Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn in the action-comedy A Bird on a Wire (1990) as well as Leslie Neilson and Olympia Dukakis in a 1993 comedy-drama movie called Digger.
I also had the good fortune to work with Richard Dean Anderson in an episode of the TV series MacGyver. For that one I played the role of a hospital patient. The episode was filmed in and back of the Victoria Royal Museum, made to look like a hospital. Richard was friendly but other than an occasional nod and “Hi, how you doin’ ” I had little opportunity to chat with him.
I worked with Winona Ryder in the 1994 film Little Women. During the shoots she was very friendly. Back then she was going out with Dave Pirner, the lead vocalist of the rock band Soul Asylum. (They had a big hit with the single Runaway Train.)
Winona and Dave were mostly arm and arm whenever she wasn’t doing a scene. They seemed like a happy couple.
One scene commenced with Winona and I being in close physical proximity, so I had the chance to talk with her and Pirner a little. I told him I was the manager of a local music store and he said he’d like to drop by Long & McQuade to rent a guitar — which he did a couple of days later. I was a big fan of the band. It was a real treat meeting him.
My one scene in Little Women was simply to walk down the street carrying a ladder. I was told to stop at a building, put the ladder up against the building and to climb up the ladder to the rooftop to do some roof repairs. (the scene goes by very quickly, but we spent hours doing the scene as the director wanted to film it from many angles.) The movie was a period piece set in the mid to late 1800s, so my wardrobe had to look of that era.
In a series called Terminal City with Gil Bellows (he also played a lawyer on the TV series Ally McBeal) I had the part of a detective investigating a possible child abduction. I didn’t have any lines, but it was still great.
I also played an inmate in a mental institution in a movie starring Wanda Sykes. The working title of the movie (which to this day has yet to be released) was World’s End.
Ten of us were selected to play inmates in the mental institution. The funny thing was, our agent told us that “all of you have been selected to be inmates by the director of the movie. So do not change your look…do not get a haircut or change the colour of your hair…you have been picked based on your appearances and the filmmakers want you to show up on set looking exactly like your headshot on your resume.”
Later, we all had a good laugh, asking “is it a good thing to be picked by our photos to be inmates in a mental institution? What does the director see in us to make him think we’ll make good inmates in a mental institution?” I still ponder that question.
In all my years being a background performer I had a talking role just once. Just a short line. This was for a Japanese TV production, a bit similar to the American television show 60 Minutes, in which they’d air re-enactments of some real-life event on each program.
This episode was about a 1999 bank robbery that happened in Victoria. The leader of the robbery was Stephen Reid, already notorious as a former member of the Stopwatch Gang which robbed millions of dollars from banks in the 1970s.
In the show I played a police officer who arrives at the bank and sees Reid talking to a teller while robbing the bank. I was instructed to say: “Hey, you — hold it right there!” The actor playing Reid was to turn, notice me, then make a mad dash to a back door of the bank with me in pursuit.
After the first run-through the director walked me back to my starting point and said, “Can you run a little slower this time…you almost caught him, and he’s not captured in this scene.”
When I saw the completed episode on a VHS tape years later (that’s how long ago this was filmed), I was disappointed to see my one and only speaking role had been re-dubbed in Japanese for the Japanese audience.
Hey, that’s show biz.
Sometimes funny things happen. For instance, on the set of A Bird on a Wire I was standing next to a man who was Mel Gibson’s stunt double. (A double is the guy who performs all the dangerous stunts in the movie.) He was dressed exactly like Mel Gibson right down to the snakeskin boots he wears in the movie. He was similar in facial features to Gibson as well.
One day we were in Market Square in downtown Victoria, standing in an area that was roped off to keep the public from walking onto the set. Three giggling girls ducked under the rope and dashed up to Gibson’s stunt double. They said, “Please, can we get a picture with you, Mel?” We looked at each other, grinning, and the stunt double said, “Okay, sure.”
I took their camera, and the girls ran to the double’s side. He put his arms around their shoulders. I took the photo, gave the camera back to the girls and they ran off giggling, thinking they’d just got a picture taken with a famous movie star.
A Bird on a Wire is directed by John Badham, a famous director who also did Saturday Night Fever. In one scene in A Bird on a Wire Gibson was supposed to ride up on a motorcycle and stop a few feet from a table where I was sitting. I’d been told to chat with a group of women, also background performers, while having a drink.
The plan was for Gibson to ride up, stop, and yell at Goldie Hawn to jump on the back of his bike. Then they were to speed off with someone else in hot pursuit.
So, Gibson roared up on the motorbike, stopped and shouted for Hawn to get on. The women and I chatted and smiled in the background, clinking our glasses as if we were celebrating something. Suddenly Badham, the director, shouted, “Cut! You two in the background! No clinking of your glasses!”
Gibson turned to stare at us without saying a word. His look pretty much said, “Oh great…thanks. Now we have to do that scene again!” Which, of course, we did. Sorry guys — we just thought it looked good. And besides they were only paper cups; there was no sound when we “clinked.” I guess the director didn’t want any action in the background that might distract the audience from Gibson’s performance. There’s a lot to learn when you’re working on a movie set.
The most fun I ever had was working with Leslie Nielsen. We were filming a scene from the movie Digger at Mattick’s Farm just outside of Victoria. The designated waiting area for us background performers was in a restaurant.
My scene with Nielsen was in the ice cream parlour at the farm. My role in this scene was very small, even though we were at Mattick’s Farm rehearsing for close to four hours by the time we finished shooting the scene.
I had to walk around the ice cream parlour area while Nielsen and Olympia Dukakis (who played his wife) walk up to the counter to order some ice cream cones. In the movie you can make me out in the background, although I’m mostly just a shadowy silhouette.
During our breaks I’d sit at a table with other background performers. Leslie would come and hang out with us — a very unusual thing for a star to do. (Generally, you’re instructed not to talk to the stars of the movies unless they talk to you first.)
The man was hilarious and had us laughing the entire time. He had an electronic whoopee cushion device that he’d activate when people walked by our table. It emitted a variety of fart sounds. Short ones…long ones…well, you get the idea. It was something none of us would have expected but it was hilarious beyond words. That was a highlight for me – hanging out with a star like Leslie Nielsen. A really nice guy.
These are just a few of the movies and TV shows I’ve worked on and some of the people I’ve worked with. I love being a background performer. I love being in front of a camera and I love seeing how movies work from the inside out.
I learn something new on every shoot. Doing this kind of work I’ve met many wonderful people, some of whom I now consider friends. The background-performer circle is a close-knit little family sometimes.
I’m still active as a background performer after all these years and still love it.
Things have been a little slow this year due to the writers’ strike. But I did work in a Hallmark Easter movie. I also recently worked in a yet-to-be-released movie called An Island Light in which I play a fisherman. I also worked in the mini-series Bones of Crows and a holiday Christmas series, Holidazed, due to come out later this year. (I play a store clerk in a men’s clothing store in one episode.)
I look forward to getting a call from my agent to let me know I’ve been hired for yet another movie or TV show. See if you can spot me in the background… I’m the man in back!
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