a most epic engagement

You will be interested to know that yesterday I defeated Anne Hathaway in a staring fight. Roundly.

I am once again getting far ahead of myself, so to give some time for my liver and kidneys to catch up (I love those guys) I will hop backwards in time to this past Tuesday at precisely noon p.m., when I parked my outrageously cool 1982 Yamaha XS 400 motorbicycle in front of the offices of Urban Casting on Homer Street in Vancouver. I was there to fulfill my lifelong dream of being a human prop, out of focus in the background of movies. This is one of those easy dreams, since they'll take on just about anyone as an extra. They took me.

It's really, really tempting to make this a super long post and explain to you curious people everything I now know about the lives and habits of the bottom feeders of the film industry, but my Internet card doesn't quite reach the source electronic thingy in my landlord's house. As a result, I'm typing this while sitting in my sweet-action cherry red '91 Volkswagen Golf muscle car, freezing my little fingers off.

So I'll cut all that out for now and stick to the important part about crushing Anne Hathaway, whom you will remember, of course, from her previous Hollywood forays as principal person in "The Princess Diaries" and "The Devil Wears Prada". Miss Hathaway is currently in Vancouver shooting a film entitled "Passengers" under the direction of one Rodrigo Garcia, whose father (you will be fascinated to know) is Nobel prize-winning novelist Frederico Garcia Lorca - who wrote a really befuddling book entitled "Cien Anos de Soledad", among others.

I, as one of the newest additions to the Urban Casting Grind, was given the opportunity yesterday to be camera fodder for this same movie. I will skip a lot of sign-in and costume details and plop you at the top of the steps on the second floor of the UBC law library, where I and four other people chosen out of the 150 extras on set had been escorted. I looked down the long, moldering rows of legislative nonsense and there she was, looking much smaller in the flesh than you'd expect, had you seen her previously in the theatre, where she was about twelve feet tall.

I peered at her a while and then was then plopped down at a table about ten feet away from her without direction of any kind, so I fell to reading "Slaughterhouse Five" and making an active effort to keep my eyes from boggling. It wasn't that hard, actually. It is a very good book. Still, I couldn't help taking chances and sneaking glances (when the cameras were not rolling) and wondering how this thin, pale (fairly short) little snippet could actually be a raving Hollywood beauty. Beautiful, yes. But not a goddess.

She was most decidedly human-looking. Despite all her inherent mortality, though, the allure of fame shrouded her in translucent magic, so that my eyes kept bouncing of their own accord away from Vonnegut's writing and over towards the Princess.

For about forty-five minutes I played this little game, pretending to be professional and trying not to be "one of those guys" whom movie stars are always having to avoid. I was pleased as pie at my incredible self control. So controlled was I, in fact, that when she walked off set behind me and brushed me with the hem of her garment, I neither screamed that I'd been healed, turned to look, nor acted upon the whelming urge to trip her. After another five minutes I was excused, sent back to "holding", and introduced to the reality of being an extra - an afternoon of waiting.

Around five o'clock I was plunked back into the action and after about two hours as a fuzzy little blip waaaaay back on the horizon, I found myself mouthing and miming a conversation with my new old friends, Bill and Ivon, about fourteen feet from her ladyship, directly opposite the camera. This was a longer scene and I was to be on camera, just below and between both the starlet and her conversation partner for most of it. I pulled out my best acting chops, ate them with a flourish and proceeded to act as though I weren't even a little bit out of focus (which I undoubtedly was).

Now, you may not know this, but movies aren't usually shot in just one take. They can shoot up to eight zillion takes from, like, four angles, depending, so an actor might say a line anything from one to twenty-four zillion times. In between each of these times, Annie (as the director kept calling her) would be circled by a group of women, who'd primp her, pet her, and spritz her with water (it was theoretically raining outside).

During one of these moments, it occured to me that being an extra was not my career of choice. I was not a recently graduated theatre student, hoping desperately to make it. I was just a dude doing something random for fun. I realized that I did not need to worry about protocol, or professionalism, or whatever, because if I got fired I wouldn't care and after that day I would most likely never see her again.

So I stared. Flagrantly. She had at that moment launched into singing "Dankashen" (which you'll remember from the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off) to herself. I stared until she stopped. And then the inevitable happened: eye contact. I didn't flinch. I just kept staring. I stared with all my might. I stared with both my eyes and a few of my more sensitive pores. She stared back.

Primp, primp, went the pudgy make-up lady with the red-flecked hair. Spritz, spritz, went the eager water spritzer girl with the water-spritzing bottle. Circled her they did, messing about, but she and I remained locked in classic heroic combat - finite man against goddess, Hercules (that's me) brazenly facing his Aphrodite. The spritz lady came between us, allowing little Annie a moment's rest in which (I like to think) she undoubtedly rested by glancing away. I stared on, undaunted, and when the spritz lady moved over to Miss Hathaway's right shoulder her eyes were locked, again, on mine.

She said something to some people behind her, making them laugh. I could tell she was mocking me, taunting me, flaunting her cool reserve in my face. Another fifteen seconds passed without a break. Sweat was pouring off me now and I wondered if I could survive. The tension was causing the air between us to vibrate, like heat waves on a summer day in the Mojave. And then she broke, turned, and walked away to her mark. It was over.

If you ever meet her, this Miss Hathaway, and remind her of that moment, I don't doubt she will feign ignorance. For the rest of yesterday, I know, she hid her disgrace behind a wall of affected disdain, pretending as she walked by that she did not even see me, was not aware of the definitive blow I'd dealt her - but she knew. Oh yes, she will long remember the day she met one Joshua Barkey, extra extraordinaire. She will think twice, I wager, before she considers returning to this rainy, dismal northern land, this hometown of her defeat.

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Being an extra, they say, is about having the right look. You do what you're told, make no noise and maybe, if you're lucky, the casting director will like your look and choose you to be a featured extra, one of the lucky few who get recognizable moments in the sun. Yesterday, I had that look. I walked on that set, made my mark, and walked away.