Last Tuesday, I braved skytraining into pre-Olympic downtown Vancouver to visit a talent agency. Yes, a genuine talent agency. I had a sort-of appointment and everything! Of course, I know your immediate thought is, “Man, has God not granted Theresa more than her fair share of talents, enough already!” But seriously, folks it isn’t like that. I didn’t actually need any real talent to get signed onto this agency.
I signed on to be human wallpaper -also known as a background performer, or an extra for the movie and TV industry.
How I got this low-talent acting bug was by chaperoning my daughter, last month, to the eerie set at the old Riverview Hospital for a locally-shot-but-pretending-to be-an-American-city TV show. My kid was hired to play a wan, thin, pathetic orphan at an orphanage. She was perfect for the role as she is a wan and thin kid. She is, however, not pathetic; she was expertly acting that part.
We were there for the better part of the day (9:00-3:00) and there was a lot waiting around, but there was some great eats to be had. From what I had read, extras are considered the bottom of the food chain in the industry, and therefore, should not always expect to be able to eat with any of the higher-ups from the catering truck. But at this particular set, we were granted this special privilege. Woo-hoo, spaghetti! Even the chaperones were fed. I blew my low-carb diet that day.
My daughter and I came out pretty pleased from the experience. She got to miss a day of school and got paid for it and I got to sit around all day working on some illustration sketches for a client. The pay, though, is nothing to get excited about; it’s about $10 an hour for extras, but for a kid, it’s awesome –and better than babysitting. My kid needs the money. Being a pint-sized fashionista can get expensive.
A couple days later, the agent, Bruce, emailed all the agency members asking, no begging, for extras for a Japanese commercial being shot the following week. Hoping I was Asian enough (French Canadian & Chinese) to pass, I e-sent him my picture. At first it looked good, as the Japanese director was getting desperate enough to take any ol’ Asian, but then it fell through by the weekend. Oh well. Then I brilliantly thought, "Heck, why don’t I just sign up too? After all, I am a freelance illustrator/writer/stay@home-mom, and therefore have a very flexible schedule, and make next to no money anyway, so why not?"
So, last Tuesday was payroll day for the Riverview shoot and I had earlier sent an email to Agent Bruce asking that since they already had my picture in their files, could I sign up when I came by the office to pick my kid’s cheque? Agent Bruce said sure, come sign up! Boy, what a hard sell. And the agency: despite my stereotypical-Hollywood-based preconceptions of what a talent agency would look like (smoky, poorly lit, a worn out couch in the corner) it was a rather pleasant, sunny little office. And instead of my stereotypical-Hollywood-based preconceptions of what a talent agent would be like (swarmy, cigar-smoking, loud-talking) Agent Bruce was an ordinary 30-something dad-of-two-kids kind of guy.
Agent Bruce took a couple photos of me, gave me my kid’s cheque (then I gave him a cheque for the agency’s 15% cut) and I was done like dinner. As I walked back to the train station in the pre-Olympic bustle of the city, I gleefully thought to myself, I have an agent! OK, so Agent Bruce is not a book agent from the publishing industry (a Holy Grail dream of mine) but I can lay claim to an agent now–even if it is for human wallpaper work.
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