3 FAST 3 FURIOUS: How I Survived Being an Extra on the Set of The Fast and The Furious 3: Tokyo Drift

Fall 2005

Act 1, Scene 1

Person: Andrew, what the %#$& have you been doing with yourself?

Andrew: Well...


It all began with a call from my close high school friend and confidant Ryan Olf. Hi, I said. Hi, he said. Then he dropped the bomb. No, he didn't fart. He said unto me:

"Hey man, my aunt got me a gig as an extra on the Fast and the Furious 3 and they said I could bring a friend. Do you want to come?"

I quickly went through all the things I had to do that week in my head: read, sleep, continue writing my play, sleep, play Ken Griffey Jr. Slugfest, sleep, molest a hobo, look for a job and then sleep some more. So, I said:

Shyeah!

He told me that the job would be on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday down in Long Beach and we would be playing high school students.

What an opportunity! Not only would I get my face, back or ankle into a big-budget movie but I'd also get an insight into the film-making process and bask in the glow of such stunningly mediocre talents as Vin Diesel, Paul Walker or the surnameless Tyrese.

Boy was I wrong.

THE NIGHT BEFORE and DAY 1

Day 1 started with a 4 am wake-up call in order to get to Long Beach in time for our 5:30 am call time. We had driven down the night before and stayed at Ryan's alma mater, Cal Tech, in Pasadena. What I neglected to give serious thought was the fact that this was the night at Cal Tech where freshmen were initiated into their residential houses. This involves the freshmen walking around the campus while being covered in flour, paint, syrup and apparently (not joking) occasionally urine, while chanting vulgar poems about each residential house into the early morning hours. My plans to get to sleep around 10 pm and get a moderately good night of sleep were dashed almost immediately.

Once we got there, I followed Ryan around as he reconnected with his old housemates, most of them Asian, all of them irrevocably unattractive. I debated in my head whether it was more or less awkward that Ryan didn't have the social sense to introduce me to any of them. Was it worse to lurk in the backgrounds unnamed, or actually meet these people? I genuinely couldn't decide.

My bedroom was to be the house's TV room, which had nice, long couches. Ryan's ex-roommate reported that the TV had been broken for a while, so I probably wouldn't be bothered. This was untrue, the TV had been fixed the previous day and before I was able to get to sleep I had to sit through an hour of Jordan's Crossing with some friendless girl. At least I was able to introduce myself. The girl left at 11 pm and finally I was able to lie down. Miraculously, the couch was long enough for my lanky frame and I began to doze off. My sleep was impeded by the loudest crickets I had ever heard. I got up, swearing the crickets were actually in the room with me. But, I saw that I was near a window and decided that the crickets must have been right outside. I lay back down, and finally fell asleep around 1 a.m.

Turns out the crickets were in the room. And they were cicadas. And they were mating. Four feet from my couch. Ryan came in to go to bed around 2 am after playing some epic Super Smash Bros. and found the cicadas mating by the door jam. Wonderful. We got up, dressed and hit the road. We stopped at McDonald's for some coffee and the greatest culinary creation known to man: the Sausage Biscuit. One part sausage, one part biscuit, all business. We rolled into the parking lot and boarded the buses that would take us to the high school we would be filming at. On the drive down, Ryan and I discussed how we thought we would be the oldest, swarthiest high school students down there. We were dead wrong. Surveying the motley crew of characters assembled in a high school gym at 6 am, I decided that we were easily in the younger 50%. Yikes.
We signed in and were hustled off to "wardrobe", which involved a woman surveying our high-schooliest clothing and telling us which baggy t-shirt and pair of shorts to wear. We were fed breakfast, which was surprisingly good, and then headed out to the set.

The scene we were filming involved the beginning of the school day as students filed off of buses, went through metal detectors and headed into the quad. We didn't get within 50 feet of the camera or any main characters for the first 4 hours of the day. The school buses were in the back-back-background of the shot and each time we began to approach the metal-detectors where we at least would have a chance of being a blur in the back of the shot, "Cut!" would ring out from the eight production assistants scattered around the set. We did this school bus shot at least 12 times, taking up half of the day. Then, finally, we moved on to another shot. This shot involved a tighter focus on the *gasp* star of the film, some short guy who looks like he's 35, heading through the metal-detector. I vaguely recognize him but ultimately have no idea who he is. One thing is for sure: He's no Vin Diesel or Paul Walker. So, any one initially involved with this wonderful franchise had jumped ship.

Fewer extras were needed for this shot, so Ryan and I hung out on the sidelines near the cameras, trying to get a look at how films were filmed. In front of us the Assistant Director turned to a PA.

"We need more students milling around in the beginning of this shot."

The PA turned, fixed her gaze on Ryan and myself. "What are you guys doing?" she asked.

"N-Nothing," Ryan stuttered.

And suddenly we were in a shot. I tingled with excitement, realizing I would walk within feet of both the camera and the "star" of the film. This excitement wore off as we did the shot 15 times and I realized I was so close to the camera that I was undoubtedly a grey blur. Nothing more. To entertain myself, I would subtly touch Ryan's ass in the shot, making him deeply uncomfortable. This is much less funny and decidedly more creepy when I read it back to myself than it was at the time.

As the day progressed we took note of some of the characters surrounding us. Firstly, there was Sleezy McDouchebag, a football-player extra who looked like a bad caricature of a superhero. The first experience we had with him was overhearing him tell every football extra what position they would play, thusly putting them in their place and asserting himself as the alpha-douche of the group. By the end of the day he had hit-on and successfully landed himself a cheerleader extra whom we dubbed Teeny Slut. Also of note is Brandon the Stand-In, who serves as a placeholder for the anonymous star in rehearsals of shots. He seems like a nice enough guy but claims that he gets mistaken for Freddie Prinze Jr. which would be unfortunate if it were remotely true. Interestingly, there seems to be a love triangle developing between Sleezy, Teeny and Brandon the Stand-In. Sleezy gets very irritated when Teeny talks to Brandon and whisks her away whenever possible.

We broke for lunch and when we came back, we headed deeper into the quad for a big pep rally shot. Ryan and I quickly realized that we were not at all prepared for spending a day in the southern California sun. I had begun to develop an aggressive suntan on my face and a splitting headache from squinting all day. Wonderful. For this shot, Ryan and I walked back and forth in the far back. We would pretend to have a conversation and each time, all Ryan could think of to say was his newest math joke: 2 + 2 = 5 for high values of 2.

Kill myself.

The sun started getting low in the sky and my headache stepped things up a notch. The next shot involved the high school football team, The Fighting Ducks, annihilating a pinata of their rival teams mascot, the Indians. After a while, Ryan pointed out the quarterback.

"Hey, isn't that the kid from Home Improvement."

And indeed it was. Zackery Ty Bryan, the oldest son from Home Improvement, is one of the "stars" of The Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift (TFATF3:TD). So basically, for 3 hours we watched Zackery Ty Bryan tear a goofy-looking Native-American to shreds over and over again. The world has gone insane, I mutter to myself while weeping inside.

We pack things in around 5 pm due to lack of sunlight. On the bus back, we overhear the most offensively retarded conversation about hookers, with various african-american girls asserting that they live in the ghettoist part of L.A. and thus know the most about cheap prostitutes. A gentleman joins the conversation who we named Guy Who Knows The Guy From American Pie 4 (straight to video). He states that he is a virgin just so that he can later say he was lying and is definitely not a virgin.

Kill myself.

We finally get back to Ryan's car at 6:30. We head directly to Borders to buy books to entertain ourselves the following day and then to Sav-On for cheap sunglasses and sunscreen.

We get dinner with my college friend Neel in Redondo Beach, which is wonderful, and then fall asleep in Ryan's friend's house in Manhattan Beach. Even though we're sleeping on the floor, it's twelve times as good as Caltech. As I undress for bed, I take a look at my shorts and realize that there is a sizeable hole in the ass. So, my underwear may have a supporting role in TFATF3:TD.

Kill myself.