Cosmo confession: I was a TV Extra

We all do embarrassing shit when we're younger. We wear hideous clothes like tie-dyed T-shirts or Hard Rock Orlando sweatshirts. We may get high on caffeine pills and accost our Upper School director. Or we may have had a profound love of Boys II Men. But there comes an age when your misguided thoughts on what seemed like a good idea are actually just unforgivable.

For instance, when I was a junior in college, my friend Bushra and I decided to be extras on the teen drama One Tree Hill. We got the call from a casting company asking us if we'd like to be extras, and I thought, "OMG OMG OMG CHAD MICHAEL MURRAY IS A HOTTIE!!!EEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKK. THE SHOW IS SOOOOOO AWESOME.!?!" in the manner of a teen girl with the latest copy of Tiger Beat. And so, we took the day off from our classes and drove down to Wilmington, NC (known as Wilmywood by locals) to participate as glorious extras and get paid a tremendous sum of $60 for 14 hours.

I am not sure how I imagined my stint in show business - maybe some glamour and fraternization with the talent. I rehearsed what I'd say to Chad, "Hey, I think you were so great on Gilmore Girls! Want to chillax later?" Maybe one of the actresses would like my top and ask me where I got it, and I'd tell her with an air of sophisticated casualness.

What I imagined in my mind's eye was far from reality. When we got to the designated meeting spot, the extras from all walks of life (mainly unemployed townies and trashy bottled blonds from the local high school) were ushered into yellow school buses like cattle. Inside makeshift tents, the production assistants told us to keep quiet and not to ever talk to the talent. We were lowly human beings or "background artists," not worthy to be spoken to by superior Hollywood folk. If we did dare talk to the actors, then we'd be banished from the set, never to work in the "biz" as background artists again.

Our assignment was simple. Walk back and forth in a club scene. Bushra, sensing her inner hotness, whispered urgently to me, "Mariam, they are picking cute girls to dance in this 'club' scene, and that's haram, let's move to the back so we can lay low."
Never one to rock the Islamic boat, I hid behind some tall African American guys. And so, we merely walked back and forth, mouthing to each other, even though we were not in the shot. I stared at Chad Michael and all of the other D-list actors with great awe, and I thought, someday I'll be back, but I'll be a part of the crew! And as you blog readers can see, that wish certainly didn't come true, because here I am, in medical school and not in Hollywood (or even Wilmywood).

Anyway, Bushra started to sense the low-class nature of extra work and started to get agitated.
"Let's go! This is so lame!" she whispered.
"We can't! We'll ruin the continuity of the episode!" I said, ever the ye old faithful to Hollywood magic.
"This whole scene is so trashy" Bushra countered. She was my means of transportation so I finally acquiesced begrudgingly. I had realized early on the trailer-trash nature of the whole activity, but I didn't care - so caught up was I in learning the anatomy of making a TV show. We grabbed our stuff and I sadly made a run for the parking lot, fearing that the One Tree Hill crew would hunt us down and make us return to the "club."

And that was the day I gave up hope of working in Hollywood. I should probably thank Bushra for crushing my dreams like a cockroach on the wall, but I realize what could have been: I may have ended up a washed-up, 40 year-old extra in Wilmington, hanging out at the local casting office, begging to be cast in a high school classroom scene or the big prom episode. Instead, I sit back hundreds of miles away from Wilmywood and watch Chad Michael Murray's shitty acting chops on my 42" TV. Ah, the life.

--By Mariam, who is loving OB/GYN!