Nathan Johnson has landed in one of the longest unemployment lines in Los Angeles. Just another face in the crowd, Johnson is here because he's hoping to get a job as, yes, just another face in the crowd. But the crowd keeps getting bigger every day.
The lobby at Central Casting is so packed it seems impossible that one more person could squeeze through the door. Johnson, 30, handsome and elegant in a crisp, white shirt, has been waiting to sign up for an hour. "It feels like two hours," he says, eyeing the registration desk. It's only a few feet away, but it will take a lot of patience to reach it. "I'm an EMT," he says, gazing around the congested room with the sort of dignity that Will Smith might envy. Utter cool in a crisis. "If someone goes into cardiac arrest, I'm there."
Johnson has been out of work for two years. He injured his shoulder, which made it impossible for him to do the heavy lifting required in his medical tech job, and he's seen the toll of the recession all around him. "All my friends who owned houses are out of them now," he says. He grew up in Venice, but when the housing boom hit, his old beachside neighborhood became gentrified almost overnight. "The past five years was kind of a greed session, and now everybody's got a hangover."
Background artists, also known as "atmosphere" or extras, are the folks whose mere presence on the set makes the land of make-believe seem real. They are the entertainment industry's most reliable temporary workers and, since 1926, Central Casting has been supplying the creators of feature films, TV shows and commercials with most of them. Three days a week, for one hour, Central registers anyone 18 or over with a spare 25 bucks (cash only) and the documentation to prove they're legal to work in the United States to be a nonunion extra with the company.
There's no interview to sweat. No psychological tests to take. No experience required. Nonunion extras make a humble $64 a day and must follow strict orders: Never look at the camera. Never speak to principal actors or the director. Stay out of the way. Basically, keep your head down and your mouth shut.
Clutching their identification cards as tightly as their dreams, people have always flooded into Central Casting looking for work, taking that first step to become a star. Brad Pitt was discovered here. So were Eva Longoria Parker, Kelly Clarkson, Ronald Reagan and Ava Gardner. But more people are signing up to be extras than ever before -- and becoming famous, or even an actor, isn't the reason why.
