Jim Painter pops a cassette into the VCR and steps back to admire his work.

"Look, it happens quickly," he says.

Painter appears on the screen dressed in a policeman's uniform, pointing a shotgun at the noticeably exposed chest of sweaty Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's one of the final scenes from "Commando."

"Freeze, don't even think about it," Painter's on-screen alter-ego barks at Schwarzenegger.

The chubby-cheeked Painter ejects the tape and inserts another one. This time he's in a beer commercial, wearing a furry hat with buffalo horns. Another tape, and there he is dressed as a clown dancing behind Grace Slick in a Jefferson Airplane video. In the next clip he's a hyper traffic cop in a commercial for salsa.

Painter, 35, is a professional face in the crowd. He's a working actor, and he doesn't like to be thought of as \o7 only\f7 an extra. Yet, almost all of his work is in crowd shots or quickie one-liners.

He personifies the community of hustling actors trying to make a living in the background of Hollywood productions, except he is one of the few managing to make a healthy living at it. A graduate of the San Diego theater scene, Painter has made the business of being an extra his own art form.

He works constantly. In eight years in Los Angeles, his face has appeared in dozens of movies and commercials and on hundreds of television shows. He may be one of the the most widely seen actors in Hollywood that the public doesn't recognize.

Recently when a producer looking to make a short film about the quintessential Hollywood extra called Central Casting, one of the main casting agencies in Los Angeles, he was referred to Painter.

"He's a professional and he always seems to be in the right place at the right time," said Jimmy Jue, a casting director with Central Casting. "He's has a unique all-American look. You can put him in so many different things."

Ten years ago, Painter was the quintessential starving actor. In 1979, he hitchhiked to San Diego from Wyoming with a full beard, the ability to make money working construction and a degree in theater arts from the University of Wyoming.

His first role in San Diego was at the now-defunct San Dieguito Little Theater. The director, Sadie Lou Tieri, introduced Painter to her old friend, Marion Ross. Tieri asked Ross, who was appearing as the mother on the hit TV series "Happy Days," to help Painter. Ross told him to look her up when he moved to Los Angeles.