Kate Winslet and Jude Law? They're British too! Surely this connection alone was enough to get me a role as unnamed-man-in-crowd #376. With stars in my eyes I printed out a picture of myself at Target (32 cents) and headed into the bright lights of the big city.
I'd heard that, aside from war and cricket, movie making involves the most standing around doing nothing of any human activity. It would seem that applying to be an extra involves the same.
By my count, around 3000 people had turned up to apply for the 2000 non-starring roles available. The line to the door of the YMCA snaked around a complete block (up to the entrance of Chaya, by coincidence) until the queue ended about 20 yards from where it started. It's a block-buster before it's even made. A company lackey was desperately stringing "caution" tape between lamposts to stop fame-hungry people falling into the road.
I sighed, and decided that if this was the price of global stardom then it was too high. I suppose the fact that every other TV program has "reality" as genre should have alerted me that I wouldn't be the only person seeking my 15 minutes. Time to go back to more traditional ways of gaining fame and fortune, such as hard work, or playing the lottery.
I thought this was the start of the line...
...and then I thought this was...
...but it was somewhere in the middle of this.
Finally, a place it's worth queuing.
