I want to be an extra

For years I’ve been after my filmmaker friends to cast me in their projects. I don’t want to be the star, I don’t want to act, I don’t even want a close-up. I just want to be an extra.

The thought germinated in my head in 1994, when I tagged along to the shoot of a Darna movie directed by Peque Gallaga and Lore Reyes. My friend Tina had a small role as a CNN correspondent. She was world news editor of a newspaper at the time, so she didn’t really have to get into character. Tina had once been a set dresser on Peque’s movies, and she’d ended up on-camera several times: as a nagging haciendera in Unfaithful Wife, as a guest and a lady-in-waiting in Once Upon A Time (in the great hall sequence she was in two places at once, making her a bilocating extra), and as a Chinese matron in Abandonada (best remembered for the scene in which Alma Moreno clings to Joey Marquez’s leg as he walks down the stairs, thump, thump, thump). Her role in Darna would’ve been her first speaking part. She interviews Valentina, the snake-haired villain, who is disguised as the scientist Dr. Adan. For days Tina and I had rehearsed her big line: "Dr. Adan, can you save the city of Manila?" delivered in a posh Yankee accent.

On the day of the shoot Tina delivered her line flawlessly to Cherie Gil’s Valentina, in the middle of a crowd of extras who greeted her skepticism with howls of execration. Before the take Peque had instructed the extras on how to regard Tina: "Ayaw ninyo sa kanya! Hindi siya naniniwala sa idolo ninyo! English-speaking siya!" (You don’t like her! She doesn’t believe in your idol! She speaks English!)

"I was terrified," Tina said. "They really hated me! They trampled on the shoes I just bought from Via Veneto!" In fact the shoes were ruined and she could never wear them again.

The day of the movie premiere Tina got a call from Peque. "About your line…" Apparently, due to scheduling problems, they had to get someone else to dub Tina’s line. Let’s just say the dubber didn’t do the posh accent. To this day Tina will be sitting in some parlor getting a haircut, and the movie will be on TV, and she’ll see herself saying, "Dr. Adan, can you seyb di Seedee of Muhneeluh?" And the hairstylists, manicurists, and other patrons will look at the TV, look at Tina and say, "Hey, isn’t that you?"

* * *

Movie extra offers I had to reject because I was working at the time:

1) Shake, Rattle and Roll 6 or 7. I would’ve played a coroner eating a cheeseburger while performing an autopsy on the mutilated corpse of an aswang victim.

2) Diliryo. Bitchy casting director for a TV commercial starring Jomari Yllana and G Toengi.

3) Scorpio Nights 2. Cranky lecturer at a faculty meeting in the university attended by Joyce Jimenez.

* * *

I’m ready for my close-up, but where’s Mr. DeMille?

I had a small but significant role in a romantic comedy directed by Jose Javier Reyes and starring Angelu de Leon and Diether Ocampo. The movie was entitled Bukas Na Lang Kita Mamahalin (in Taglish, "Tomorrow Na Lang I’ll Love You"). I was the running commentary track: a talk-show host who interviews people about their relationships. The issues under discussion always have some bearing on the leads’ romantic situation. I was in the first and final scenes, and a few more in between, but it only took a day to shoot all of them and I wore my own clothes. On one hand it wasn’t an acting challenge because I really was a TV talk show host at the time. On the other hand I’m the last person who should be discussing relationships, my advice repertoire being limited to:

a) Jump him/her or dump him/her, just get it over with.

b) He’s gay.

c) You’ll live.

In the final scene Joey’s instruction was: "Give me a face that sums up what you think of these people." So I did. A few weeks later I reported to the dubbing studio to recite my lines again. I didn’t want to hear myself say, "Dr. Adan, can you seyb di Seedee of Muhneeluh?"

* * *

I have been an invisible extra. I was at a film festival in Italy, watching Quark Henares’ delightful black comedy Keka. Midway through the movie Keka says, "Sabi ni Jessica Zafra walang serial killer sa Pilipinas." (Jessica Zafra says there are no serial killers in the Philippines.) The heads of the European critics in the audience whipped round to look at me. I shrugged. "What, you’ve never been mentioned in a movie?"

* * *

Director Jeffrey Jeturian’s 60-plus-year-old Yaya Jonie appears in all of his movies, twice in a state of undress. This smacks of exploitation, but I know Yaya Jonie, and she insists on doing the roles. She turns up on the set and hounds the A.D. until he surrenders and puts her on camera.

Jeffrey has steadfastly refused to cast me in anything. "I could be in a crowd scene," I point out. "I could be a kibitzer." "People will recognize you from TV," he says. Or, "Can you look oppressed?" Recently he mentioned that he’s pitching a remake/sequel to Ishmael Bernal’s Working Girls. Here, I think, is my big chance. I don’t want to be a real actor. I don’t want a speaking part. I just want to be in the background somewhere, yelling at a taxi driver or kicking an ATM machine as the star of the movie walks by.

* * *

You can e-mail me at emotionalweatherreport@gmail.com.