ABOVE: Background actors on the set of Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), in this case, a walkway at the Hawaii State Capitol. (Photo courtesy Legendary Pictures)
Your eyes might be on the big stars, but it takes more than A-list talent to make a movie or TV show. Whether in a soundstage or on location, sets need to look and feel natural. Often it's the background actors who create that realism, from extras milling in crowd scenes or day players delivering single lines. Hawaii's legion of background actors and day players might have small roles, but they play a big part in the success of the many productions shot in the Islands.
"When I got the call to audition, they didn't tell me what movie it was for," says Jeremy Gilbert, a classically trained stage actor who moved to Hawaii in 2011 with his wife, Wendy Calio, also an actor, singer/dancer and choreographer. Gilbert knew only that the audition would be for a small but intense scene. He landed the part of a tracker who gets chomped by a dinosaur in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. "I'm in the movie for about fifteen to twenty seconds," Gilbert says. "But I was on set for twenty-two days, and with all of the prep and makeup and special effects, they were sometimes fourteen- or sixteen-hour days." Gilbert got the part by pretending (quite convincingly) to get eaten by a dinosaur—he didn't know what kind.. "I heard a couple of guys auditioning before me who were screaming and going crazy," he recalls. "The casting director, Katie Doyle, told me, 'Just try to keep it subtle but also, you know, real at the same time because this is a T. rex biting your head off." So I just went for it. We did one take, and she said, 'Perfect! We're done here.'" In the end, Gilbert's character met his fate in the maw of Blue, the velociraptor queen.
While Gilbert's experience gives new meaning to the term "bit part," few small roles are so dramatic. If the job involves any speaking at all (even a solo scream), it's considered a "principal" role. If there are no lines, it's typically "background," that is, the hundreds or even thousands of extras who bring scenes to life without making noise or stealing focus. It might sound easy to be an extra for something like a beach scene or a sports event, but call times might be 6 a.m. or earlier, and an extra might be on set until 6 p.m. or later, portraying random people in a restaurant, at a party or walking across the street. The many productions shot in Hawaii every year mean there's a demand for background actors of all types, as well as "day players"—actors with minor speaking roles who perform their scenes in a single day of shooting.
"There can be a lot of waiting around, but when the camera's rolling it's all about blending in, even if you have to do it over and over again," says background and principal actor David Sikkink. "If you're supposed to be in the background eating at a shrimp truck or having a burger, you have to learn how to just take tiny nibbles and move your mouth to make it look like you're really eating. Because you're going to keep taking that same bite again all day." Sikkink, an alum of the Minneapolis Children's Theatre Company, has performed in multiple film and television productions in Hawaii since moving here in 2005. "The Beatles may sing, 'All I have to do is act naturally,'" he says of working as an extra. "But so many times, when people get in front of a camera, they become self-conscious. That's the hard part, acting naturally and trying not to stand out." Take after take, they reset and do it again.
Sometimes real-world skills or serious acting chops are required. "When you're casting background, it's always good when you can hire people that actually have the abilities that they'll be portraying," says casting director Johanna Bautista, who specializes in finding background talent and actors. "For example, if you're looking for someone to play a cop on a show like Hawaii Five-0 or Magnum P.I., it's great to hire someone with tactical training, especially when it's an action scene. Or if you need a football team or soccer team, to get people who actually play football or soccer." Bautista's database includes notes on background actors' special skills, training and other attributes. For the latest Taika Waititi film, Next Goal Wins, about the national soccer team of American Samoa, "We needed to hire tons of people who could actually play soccer," Bautista recalls. "So we scouted all over the island looking for Pacific Islanders or Polynesian people who had some soccer experience." (Those interested in putting their names on Bautista's list can sign up at hawaiicastingondemand.com.)
Playing the part might mean more than running on a field in a sports jersey or storming a beach with an invading army. Background talent can make a tangible difference in the feelings evoked in a scene. Extras have to convincingly express joy, fear, panic, rage—and they have to do it without making any noise at all.
"If you're drinking and chatting with friends in a bar or restaurant scene, you have to move your lips like you're talking, but you're really not speaking the words. You're just mouthing nonsense phrases like 'peanut butter and jelly' or 'green eggs and ham,'" says Sikkink. "You could be in a scene where there's some disaster happening and you have to run down the street in a panic, but usually you would just be making the facial expressions and not actually screaming." Even something like putting a coffee cup down on a table or using silverware has to be done silently, so that the microphones capturing dialog from the principal actors won't pick up the clink.
Extras also often have to move in patterns that aren't intuitive while trying to make it look normal. "Sometimes the director or assistant director will tell you, 'This is what I'm going to need you to do,' and you have to follow those directions exactly," Sikkink says. Failure to get it just right can cause problems and delays on the set. "Even something as small as crossing too close to the principals could potentially kill the scene, or not walking in what we call a 'banana curve,' where you're literally walking in the shape of a banana. It looks like a straight line on camera but you're really moving in an arc."
Extras make a soccer match look real in Next Goal Wins (2023). (Photo courtesy Searchlight Pictures)
Getting the background to look just right takes time and talent. There can be intricate choreography, elaborate costuming and storylines that require a group of extras to perform as a collective. "For big scenes with a lot of background, I like to get everybody together and explain what the scene's about, what they're supposed to be feeling and thinking, so they can really get involved," says producer and director Bryan Spicer, whose credits include more than two hundred episodes of Hawaii Five-0 and Magnum P.I. Since extras can't usually read the script, they often don't know what's happening in the story, so the directors' guidance is essential. But when it's not possible to direct each background actor individually, they have to wing it. "We once did an episode of Hawaii Five-0 with a period scene, where we had to re-create an invasion of pirates," Spicer recalls. "So we got all the background performers together, explained the scene and gave them all permission to find their inner pirate. If you want to limp or have an eye patch, or whatever you want to do, make it your own. That way they create their own character and become invested in the story." When the cameras rolled, the pirates marauded each in their own way, but collectively in character.
"The number of extras needed for a typical show is a lot larger than people may realize," says Shayne Hartigan, owner of Alessi Hartigan Casting, who's been involved with several large-scale productions in Hawaii. "On any given production you may have twenty to thirty principal actors, but on the background side you could be looking at anywhere from five hundred to a thousand." Hartigan estimates that shows like Magnum P.I. or Hawaii Five-0 average 750 to 1,000 extras per episode. "On shows like Magnum or Five-0, we'd sometimes have large scenes needing military servicemen and women as background, like for a funeral scene with an honor guard," Hartigan says. "We would hire real honor guards to re-create these scenes, do a full service, and sometimes have crowds upward of four hundred people. We'd always try to work with liaisons from the military branches to offer those background roles to actual military personnel and their families."
With so many people involved in so many aspects of background, keeping them coordinated and costumed can be challenging. "Sometimes with Magnum P.I. we'd be shooting multiple scenes simultaneously with multiple crews," recalls Anne Selby, an actress and set costumer who's been on both sides of the camera. "As a costumer I could have twenty-five background actors in one scene playing bar patrons and they all need aloha wear. And then I'm running over to the other set, where we're shooting a cop sequence where everyone needs to be in full police gear." She would photograph each actor's outfit for approval by the head costume designer. "I love the background actors," Selby says. "They really work hard. But I felt like I needed flies' eyes because I had to watch them all and make sure nobody spilled food or drinks on their costumes."
Being an extra sometimes requires doing extra, like standing for hours in a taro patch wearing only a loincloth for the locally produced Hawaiian-language short film Kukini (2023). (Photo by Blake Abes)
Sometimes, with experience, extras become principals. They might climb the ladder to become a "featured extra," someone who figures significantly in a scene, or a day player with a line or two of dialog, or a stand-in for a principal during tedious lighting and scene blocking processes. Jeri Lynn Endo never thought she'd end up so involved in acting. "My only experience was being in a school play in fifth grade," she says. "After that I had nothing to do with acting for the next thirty years." Then one day her husband was working on a film crew for the movie Picture Bride . "They needed families to appear as background, and we had two young boys," she recalls. "So we went to work that weekend as extras." After the scene wrapped, Endo went back to her work at Kapiolani Medical Center and family life. "But later I ran into the casting director and she said, 'Where have you been? We have something else for you.'" Endo worked as a double for lead actress Tamlyn Tomita in scenes where Tomita had no dialog and didn't need to be recognizable.
Endo parlayed that experience into becoming a regular and sometimes featured extra on other productions. She played the mother of Chin Ho Kelly (Daniel Dae Kim) in Hawaii Five-0 . She's performed in a number of local productions and appeared in commercials for Hawaiian Airlines and others. Endo had a leading role in the 2016 independent local short "Aloha Vegas," which was produced by student filmmakers at the University of Hawaii's Academy for Creative Media and screened at the Hawaii International Film Festival. Endo has since become active in the local film production and independent filmmaking community, serving as a volunteer coordinator at the Hawaii Filmmakers Collective. Many other Hawaii-produced independent films also feature local actors transitioning from background to principal, and provide opportunities for students and professionals aspiring to act, write, produce and direct. In 2020, filmmaker and actress Deborah Glazier of Windward Films even made a short film, "Extra," which portrays the drudgery and dreams of a background actor in Hawaii.
"Local actors, artists and filmmakers are doing incredible work, not just in movie and TV features and short films but also new and alternative media like streaming and web content, even game development," says Georja Skinner, chief officer of the Creative Industries Division (CID) of the Hawaii Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. "Our local film community and offshore productions validate that here's a constant need for background." Skinner has worked with producers with roots in Hawaii like Angela Laprete, who recently wrapped the upcoming Apple+ series Chief of War featuring Jason Momoa, to focus on development and training for Hawaii-based performers and producers.
For those who already work in the industry and want to keep their skills sharp or for those who want to get involved, there are local resources both through the State of Hawaii and the Screen Actors Guild. "CID, UH community colleges and SAG-AFTRA offer training for actors on an ongoing basis, from background all the way up to speaking roles," Skinner says. "You might not realize it, but background plays an essential role, and good background acting takes practice. It's like going to the gym—you have to keep your skills up to really hone the craft." The state's Creative Lab Hawaii program provides free panels, workshops and immersive mentorship programs for actors and others in the creative arts. "It takes a lot to look natural on camera," Skinner says. "You may think it looks easy, but it's not."
