Don't Look Now

I’m attending a casting session for film extras. They’re asking for people who look like me (no, not because they look like me exactly) and it sounds like more fun than staying home. The film is supposed to be a large-scale production and I understand that extras aren’t allowed to have a camera anywhere near the set. I was once an extra and runner (general dogsbody) for a very low-budget film which sank without a trace, not like the Titanic, but perhaps like a boy-scout raft on a pond. Maybe divers will find the wreck one day, but they won’t bother raising it or telling anyone. In an industry where lack of publicity is not A Good Thing, I would have thought the occasional leaked photo of a star in unflattering circumstances would be doing the publicists’ job for them. I don’t think they sit in their boardroom meetings saying things like ‘The budget for this picture is going to be the biggest ever, we're pouring $500,000 into this movie. And here’s the twist: we must keep it absolutely secret – noone must know about the movie!’ But I could be wrong.