Huckleberry: Attorney at law
So, I didn’t publish a blog on Monday. This is for good reason, I would argue. I have stories to tell, and so I will tell them. Your regularly scheduled blogs will resume next week. I will post a blog alongside this one. I don’t know what it will be yet, but I will have to think of something soon. Welcome to the blog. I’m a barrister now.
I am not “technically” a barrister. I was doing some TV extra work once again, and boy, do I have stories. Allow me to take you through a couple of days of being on set.
I am working on a play at the moment. I am a part of the production team. It has been a lot of fun. Though I am not getting paid, I am doing my best to be professional and do what is required of me. This is why when the opportunity to do some TV extra work came up, I was hesitant. That hesitation didn’t last long, as at least this would be a paid gig. I happen to like being paid for things.
The show being filmed doesn’t air in Ireland. It's called The Rainmaker, and it is based on a book. This is all the information I gathered before arriving on set. We were instructed to dress in business casual upon arrival. After throwing something together and getting it pre-approved, I made my way to what we in the business call the “unit base”. This is a fancy way of saying I drove to a community hall in north Dublin and got ready there (alongside getting my hair and make-up done, which is still odd to me). It wasn’t until I arrived in my nice clothes that I found out I would be dressed as a proper barrister. I had the whole shebang: waistcoat, shirt, that weird necktie barristers wear, and a robe. I was relieved that I wasn’t going to be fitted for a powered wig, as the last gig I had required that and it was beyond uncomfortable.
For the uninitiated, being an extra for TV or film means one thing regardless: a lot of waiting around. After being given some breakfast and a brief rundown of the day ahead, we were bussed off to the set. The set was, as I later found out, a local family court in Dublin city centre. We were left waiting in a community centre next door until we were called. Finally, we were.
Being on a professional TV show set is always fascinating to me. Everyone is doing their job and is laser-focused on making the best possible thing. The crazy thing is the amount of effort that goes into what I am assuming will be, at most, a five-minute scene. It is eye-opening how little footage is shot in one day. This isn’t a criticism; more of sheer admiration.
We extras were, unsurprisingly, involved in the background of a couple of scenes. Don’t ask me what was going on in the scene. It was a lot of court and lawyer jargon that Ya Boi did not understand. This is why my heart went out to one actor in particular.
A young Irish actor was involved in the scenes. Having googled her afterwards, this was probably her biggest professional onscreen role to date. One scene involved her spouting a fast-paced, legal-jargon-heavy monologue, and she had a lot of trouble with it. As an actor who has been on stage, I have had similar incidents. However, when it’s a big-budget American TV series and there’s a crew of 50 to 60 people, plus all the extras, it would be hard for anyone not to feel the pressure. Thankfully, she got through the scene, and everyone went home happy. I will say it warmed my heart seeing how supportive her castmates, as well as the director, were of her. I am certain that isn’t the case for every set, and that’s why my second-hand anxiety was in full bloom while watching on.
You are probably wondering whether there are any actors you know in the show. Well, there was one actor on set when I was there who I recognised right away. It was PJ Byrne. I knew him from a minor role in The Wolf of Wall Street. You may know him from something else. I had a brief interaction with him when I was making my way outside during a break. We walked past each other, and he nodded at me and said: “Hey, dude”. It's kind of cool being in the same room as someone who has been in the same room as Leonardo DiCaprio. Anyway, I digress.
Both days were kind of melded into one for me. My call time on day one was 9 am, and on day two it was 7.30 am. A lot of these jobs involve many late-night and early-morning drives, but I still recommend it to anyone who has the time. Go do TV and film extra work! It’s a lot of fun.
That’s all I have to say about that. Thank you for reading and for your time.
