My "Hollywood" moment

-- Jane McGough

The red carpet, the stars, the gowns, the critics, the fashion police—from the day the nominees are announced to the night the awards are handed out, it’s a media frenzy of prognostications on which actors and movies will win an Oscar. We mortals must be content with watching from the sidelines; few of us will ever have our time in the spotlight, but some have come close.

My movie of 2006 garnered no Oscar nominations. I don’t mean my favorite movie of the year. I mean my movie of the year. I was an extra in A Prairie Home Companion, starring Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Lindsay Lohan, Garrison Keillor, Woody Harrelson and Kevin Kline, among others.

I live just blocks from the Fitzgerald Theater in downtown St. Paul. I had heard that the film would be shot at the Fitzgerald Theater. Since I was a full-time student with time on my hands, I kept an eye and an ear out for how I could be involved in the movie. When I learned that the casting office for extras was across the street from my condo, I hurried over with a photo in hand to sign up. No experience was necessary—just show up on time in a wardrobe-approved outfit and expect to wait for as long as 12 hours for the unpaid opportunity to be a face in the crowd. Sounded good to me!

When summoned, I arrived at the cattle call with about 200 other extras and planned to spend hours on schoolwork. I didn’t study, I was busy observing and chatting with the models, the nuns, the seasoned actors and the regular folks (like myself), along with other assorted characters who filled the waiting room.

Each extra was assigned a number, and due to my decision to sit near the back of the room, I was given something like number 150.

We waited patiently. It wouldn’t have helped to behave otherwise; like jury duty, we were prohibited from leaving. After about three hours, the casting director stood on a chair in the front of the room. The extras’ voices fell to an excited hush. Numbers 1–70 were called and rushed across the street to the Fitzgerald Theater. They returned two hours later, flushed and swooning. They’d had the privilege of sitting in the front rows while Streep and Tomlin sang a duet. Wow!

I began to worry: What could possibly be left for me?

Soon after, the next 20 extras were called for the cowboy scene with Harrelson and John C. Reilly After waiting for six hours without being called, the rest of us had been sent home. But, there was still hope; we would be placed at the top of the list for the next day’s shooting. And the next day I did get called. For three wondrous hours I sat in the third row of the theater as Lohan sang her solo. At the end of the song, the entire cast joined her on stage and sang and danced, take after take after take.

Except for the backs of a few heads, no extras star in this edited scene, but one of three cameras did swoop low over my head as it closed in on Lindsay.

I was called once more — for a nighttime shoot. Extras pretending to be theatergoers were filmed entering the Fitzgerald Theater. That’s me on the other side of the lobby as Guy Noir (played by Kline) enters along with the crowd. Yeah, over there — way over there — the blur.

OK, I’ll admit that I’ve paused and paused the DVD and have yet to pick myself out, but I am there!

When A Prairie Home Companion premiered at the Fitzgerald Theater, the stars paraded in horse drawn carriages through downtown St. Paul. A red carpet lay on the street in front of the theater. Streep tossed a pink rose from her carriage; onlookers gasped in awe as my friend picked the treasure up and tucked it safely away.

I snapped pictures with my digital camera as best I could, stretched over the heads of taller paparazzi. I got decent shots of Streep, Tomlin and Kline. Then I subsequently lost them all when my computer’s hard drive crashed. Thankfully, my friend snapped a photo with her camera of my foot on that red carpet. Running shoes and sweat pants — what would Joan Rivers say?

Never mind her; Hollywood needed me, and I answered the call. And I’d do it again.