Lights, Camera, Action! - Why did I queue for hours on Thursday?
The magnetic pull of 'what if' and the movies
This week, I’ve written something a little bit different. It only formed its shape on Friday as it was inspired by the events the day before!
“All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.”
When I woke up on Thursday, little did I know that it was going to be a day of two distinct halves. The first half was spent in the sunshine at the beach with friends, and the second half involved three and half hours of queuing.
How did I end up with such a contrast between my morning and afternoon?
The answer: the lure of being an extra in a film.
Whilst I was catching up with my friends at the beach, I couldn’t help but think about an email I’d received the day before, from an extra casting agency that I signed up to. It was regarding an open casting opportunity, which was happening for a project being produced by MGM and Amazon. As I sat in the beach café, I knew that I needed to make a decision fast whether I was going to go or not.
Was I really about to go to an open casting, where potentially hundreds or thousands of people would be queuing up for a slim chance of appearing as an extra in a film?
The lure of ‘what if’ and the possibility of being in a movie swayed me to take a chance, as I knew I would regret it if I didn’t give it a go. So not long after I returned home from the beach, I grabbed some snacks, changed and decided to make my way to the open call. I parked my car, paid for two hours parking and then walked in the rain to the football stadium where the open call was taking place. As I walked towards the doors, a few people were being directed to the casting room upstairs, so I followed them and felt quite optimistic as I climbed the stairs as I thought I would be queuing out the front door. Only when the doors opened did I do a double take, clocking the queue that snaked from the casting room all the way down the corridor, disappearing around several corners. I almost gave up on the spot, but was then jostled along by others who decided to make their way to the end of the queue to see where it stopped.
After what seemed like an eternity, I finally reached the end of the queue. Red-faced, I peeled off my jacket, lent against the wall and did up my umbrella. I then asked Siri to set an alarm for thirty minutes as I wanted to see how quickly the queue was moving, as I was acutely aware of my allotted parking time and didn’t want to get a ticket. Slowly but surely, as we moved, the people around me in the queue started to chat. I don’t remember how it started, but I think it was because someone had mentioned that they had already been in the queue this morning. They had made it to the casting room but then had to go, so they came back for a second try. This revelation made the six of us (two couples, me and the girl who mentioned she was here this morning) to all turn towards each other and the conversation began to tentatively flow.
We started with our joint disbelief on how long the queue was, as we’d all wrongly assumed that by coming at mid-afternoon it would be calmer and quieter. We then moved along to who had or hadn’t been an extra before. One guy, had been an extra on Downton Abbey, The Crown, and The Witcher and so shared his tales of being on set. An older gentleman spoke about his time as an extra many years ago on EastEnders- which produced interesting anecdotes as well as questions which kept us all entertained. We then started asking each other questions about our lives, jobs and why we had come to the open casting, which was really interesting. Eventually we found ourselves at the door of the room where the casting team were, we all felt jubilant that we made it that far. Little did we know that the longest wait was about to come.
As we made it into the room, we saw four separate banks of chairs. One for initial holding, the second for waiting before you were called up to go to the people who were taking details, the third set of chairs belonged to the measuring waiting area and the final set was where you had to sit before you had your photo taken. Just as we were about to be guided to the first lot of chairs, one of the group wanted to take a photo of us all to commemorate that we made it into the room. We all turned and smiled for the camera. It was slightly surreal, considering that we were complete strangers a few hours before. We had formed a tight-knit little family and we were now posing for a picture together.
As we soon discovered the hardest part was waiting in the room, the time seemed to slow down as we were barely moving. Luckily as we had all tightly bonded at this point the conversation between us flowed freely. At one point I started to panic that I was going to have to leave as the clock was ticking on my parking ticket (I had until 5pm). As I was sharing my anguish, one of the queue family very kindly offered to Ringo me some extra hours, but my friend who I was messaging at the same time very kindly stepped in and added extra time. The fact that someone I met only a few hours ago offered to pay for extra parking time really warmed my heart.
Just after 5pm, I made my way to the first set of desks to get registered. As each one of the queue family walked down, we called out to each other, 'see you on the other side', and guided each other to the next set of seats. Looking out to make sure we kept our places and got chosen for the next bits in the right order. We jostled each other on and still kept talking and sharing stories right until the end, saying a fond farewell to each other as the last one of us had our pictures taken. It felt like we had just completed a marathon.
We had been together for over three and a half hours and the camaraderie and support kept us all going to the end. We had spoken to each other with such openness and familiarity, creating an intense bond. At one point, me and another queue mate nearly gave up, but we became each other's cheerleaders, urging each other to stay. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything like it.
Having a shared experience with strangers felt exhilarating, freeing and inspiring. If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, I implore to turn to the nearest person next to you and just start talking, you never know what you might learn or what you might hear. We are never going to see each other again, unless we all make it into the film, but I wouldn’t swap the experience for anything in the world.
Have you ever encountered a similar experience? Have you ever experienced the kindness of strangers? I would love to know :)