On a rainy Saturday morning, a crowd is lining up inside a building on South Des Plaines for a chance to break into the movies. By the mid-afternoon, almost 1,000 will have registered with Holzer, Roche & Ridge, the casting company that has hired extras for such films as ”Prelude to a Kiss,” ”Home Alone” and ”The Music Box.”
”We have about 10,000 people in our files in these plastic containers,” says Mark Ridge, who started in the business almost six years ago after he had been an extra on TV`s ”Jack and Mike.” ”Many of them find out what`s available by calling the Illinois Film Office`s phone line (427-FILM).” (For ”Mad Dog and Glory” and ”Mo` Money,” the message lady asked for
”Hispanics, blacks, Puerto Ricans, Orientals . . . . Also seeking extreme punk rocker or heavy-metal types. . . .”)
”The great thing about Chicago is that most of those 10,000 don`t want to be actors,” Ridge says. ”They just want the experience of being in a movie. A lot of seniors like it because it`s something to do, and they get a little extra money-usually, it`s $50 a day plus overtime-and they get to socialize.
”People do it once, and either love it or hate it. Some shoots are difficult, some aren`t. For `The Babe`-our biggest movie ever (about 16,000 extras in contrast to the average 5,000)-we just came off nine days at Wrigley Field, with people sitting in the sun watching baseball. Now, that sounds pretty easy, but they pulled 12-hour days and it was hot.
”Since a lot of films were originally scheduled for New York, they want a `New York look.` Like people who frequent nightclubs, or the sterotypical image of a cab driver. Actually, the New York look is pretty close to the Chicago look.
”The directors love it when we give them the real thing. On `Backdraft,` we gave them a real nurse. As she was wrapping Robert De Niro`s arm, she asked him a question. Ron Howard, the director, asked what she was doing, and she said she was asking him if the bandage was tight. Ron said, `Great. Do it again.` So she got a line. Some of the local firefighters who were extras liked it so much they want to do more. They`ve played cab drivers for us, whatever.
”We tell the extras not to talk to the actors unless they`re spoken to first. One young woman flew in all the way from California to be an extra on the set of `Folks` just so she could see Tom Selleck. She didn`t bother him or anything. Just wanted to see him in person.
”I do think people in Chicago are starting to take movies for granted. There`s still excitement, but it`s so much different when we go to small towns, where, just for a chance to be an extra, people will cancel surgery.”
