How to be a Brilliant Television Extra

It’s recently come to my attention that several of you have been writing to the Academy Awards requesting the creation of a new “Background Actor” category in order to recognize me for my daring and original work as a television extra. I’m touched.

Below are some clips and thoughts about my meteoric rise to success in Hollywood, and the methodology I use to transform humdrum scenes into magic, unforgettable film experiences. I imagine James Lipton will be calling me about them soon. If you follow these tips, you too can become an unforgettable TV background extra.

This was a very challenging scene for me, as an actor. How do I truthfully convey “I am a courtroom spectator, for some reason” to you, the audience? Also, who do I know with courtroom experience? The answer: no one. That’s why for this scene I relied heavily on “Stanislavski’s Method,” which was an experiment where Stanislavski would ring a little bell whenever his dog ate dog food, and thus taught his dog to salivate using a little bell.

In this scene, conversely, I am using “Method Acting.” See the difference?

The man on my right is Brent Spiner, who you may recognize as Mr. Data from “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” Which means that, in a limited capacity, I have now worked with people I own action figures of. If that same day I had made out with a girl in a dressing room, I would have successfully accomplished all of my life goals from 1994.

I don’t remember the name of the actor to my right, but he was awesome. As the day progressed and I got more bored and maybe I’d been drinking, I started telling the other background actors we should all yell “SHAZAM!” at the end of the show and hi-five each other, like in Casablanca. Anyway, word got to this guy, and he nicknamed me “Shazam Boy.”

This is taken from the show “Brothers and Sisters,” which, interestingly, does not actually have any black people. The picture is pretty good evidence of a bad editor at work. See how blurry I am, compared to the “lead” actor? Terrible. Plus, by moving the camera to follow his movements and not focusing on EVERYONE, you, the viewer, can barely tell that in moments I turn from the girl I’m talking to and pretend to pour a martini off the side of the roof onto pedestrians below.

At this point I got really bored and starting writing notes to a bartender who passes by me in a moment. We would start rolling, and I would drop a hand-written note onto his tray reading: “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU.” Then, in the next scene, “SERIOUSLY. LATER TONIGHT. IN THE PARKING LOT.” And, “WATCH YOUR BACK.” He took it pretty well, but then someone had the bright idea of trying to slip my notes to Sally Field, so I quit writing them. What happened to my faux death threats? Presumably they’re still floating around Disney studios.

Here I developed the “Heaton Method,” which is this: it’s surprisingly easy to maintain your composure when destroying someone else’s. In this shot the director has instructed the girl standing next to me to seem “engaged and charmed” with my company. So I started trying to access pornographic websites on the computer, just to see what she’d do. Her professionalism is laudable.

Notice anything odd about this shot? That’s right. Only my right arm is visible. This is because of the some eight shots which pan across the room as the elevator doors open, in seven of them Alicia and I have goofy expressions and are adjusting our pants. My guess is that the same bastard editor who made me blurry earlier spotted our deviant behavior and gutted me from the footage.

The woman next to me drinking a martini is batshit crazy. Whenever you see a bar scene and you hear background chatter, that’s canned. On set, no one is talking except for the principle actors. Except for this crazy lady, who rambled on and on in a regular voice about how (despite obviously nearing fifty) she is convinced she will be the next Angelina Jolie. So the director got mad at ME, even though I was moving my lips quietly. And I was already in trouble from earlier, when all the background actors were doing such a good job that I thought we had cut and started high-fiving people and saying “Good job!”

This scene may look like a very happy zombie attack, but it’s actually a musical hallucination from the show “Eli Stone.” You might be wondering, why am I in front of the cadre of dancers? Probably because, early that morning, I thought it was funny to introduce myself to everyone by telling them I graduated from Julliard.

Later that day, when an assistant director got curious about why I “dance funny” given my extensive background, I explained “Oh, I graduated from Julliard with a degree in Agriculture.”

This is from “Greek,” and documents perhaps my most challenging scene to date. For whatever reason, when on film, I completely and utterly forget how I normally use my limbs in a casual manner. My job in the scene is: open the door. Initially, I would put the flat of my hands at eye-level, then push the door slowly until it was half way open. Then I would step around it, followed by the rest of the actors.

Fred Savage from “Wonder Years” directed the episode, and actually had to come talk to me about my poor door opening skills. “Hi, I’m Fred,” he said, “how are you?” I told him my name was Andy, and that I was doing really well. “Great. Andy, can you open the door all the way?” I thought about this. Yes, I think I could do that.

After that the scene went pretty well.

Same scene, moments later. Here I’m “The Chi,” which is an older fraternity escort during pledge week in the Greek System. Once again I relied upon “Method Acting,” and spent most of my time in between shots telling people “I’m a business major. I’m a business major. I own a polo shirt. Are you a business major? I think it’s good to be a business major.”

This is called “Minimalist Acting,” because I am so tiny in this scene on “Dollhouse.” I’m particularly proud of my performance here. My figure takes up about 1/364th of the screen, but look how expressive my body language is! A special nod to my colleague Eliza Dushku (on the right), who expertly takes my performance into account without losing anything from her own work, which consisted mostly of plot development.

Although it looks like she’s touching my butt here, this is merely an optical illusion. But it is epithetical of the intense sexual tension between myself and Eliza Dushku.

This is the back of my head. How do you know? Because no one else showed up to set to play “background college student” with a backpack AND a blazer. Which indicates that most of the actors did not actually attend college, as I wore a blazer to school nearly every day, and I recall thinking that was normal.

Here I’m about to pass by Christina Applegate, or “Christine,” as I call her. In Hollywood you call people by their first name, to indicate you are friends with them and powerful, even if you’ve never actually met them before. For instance, most people call Stephen Spielberg “Steve.” As in, “Oh, he’s fantastic. What? No, I haven’t worked with Steve yet.”

At this point in my career you can really begin to see the payoff from earlier lessons. Only weeks earlier could barely open a door on “Greek” the way normal people without nerve disorders do. But here on “Samantha Who,” I’m paying WAY careful attention to properly opening the door.

See? If you watch the footage on television, the door-closing action is majestic. I’ve probably watched this clip six or seven hours in total by now.

That’s it! I was on some other shows too, but in a lot of them my appearance is small or obscure, so I did not include them in this album.