In early 2009, unbeknownst to me, my wife Laura sent my name and photo to a casting call for a movie being filmed in Omaha.
Not just any movie.
Up in the Air.
George Clooney. Vera Farmiga. Anna Kendrick. Jason Bateman. Sam Elliott.
And, potentially:
John A. Hardy.
That spring, I got a call inviting me to Eppley Airfield to meet with the casting people. They told me to bring several choices of business attire because, if selected, I would be playing a business traveler.
This seemed well within my acting range.
I showed up with several suits and jackets. They looked through everything and settled on an outfit Laura had picked out for me: a tan double-breasted houndstooth jacket, medium-blue shirt and a tie with blues, tans and browns.
Laura said it made me look devilishly handsome.
Hollywood apparently agreed.
Or at least Hollywood didn’t immediately send me home.
There were a lot of people there for the casting call. Not hundreds, but enough that I didn’t particularly like my odds.
Gradually, the group got smaller.
And smaller.
Eventually, there were only a couple dozen of us left.
One of them turned out to be Steve Grupe, a good friend of mine from AIGA. So now I had someone to talk to while we waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
Eventually, members of the production team began coming into the room and explaining what would happen. Then they disappeared again.
About thirty minutes later, someone returned and called out five names.
Mine was first.
Holy crap.
I was going to be in one of the first scenes they were shooting with George Clooney.
I could already see the credits.
Up in the Air
Starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Jason Bateman, Sam Elliott…
John A. Hardy.
We were taken out to the set.
I’d worked around television commercial productions through advertising, so film crews weren’t completely foreign to me. But this was something else. Camera operators, grips, electricians, sound people, assistant directors, wardrobe, production assistants — people and equipment everywhere.
Our commercial shoots had never looked quite like this.
Of course, our commercials didn’t have multimillion-dollar budgets, either.
The scene itself wasn’t particularly demanding.
We were supposed to look like passengers who had just gotten off a flight and were riding an escalator.
I felt confident.
Standing on an escalator was something I had been training for my entire life.
There was one rule for the extras: remain professional. Don’t bother the actors. Don’t ask for autographs. Don’t try to strike up conversations.
Well, there went my plan of having cocktails with George after the shoot.
Then the actors came out.
We were put into position.
And suddenly I realized where they had placed me.
Right beside George Clooney.
My head nearly exploded.
This was it.
There was no way they could cut me out now.
I wasn’t somewhere blurry in the background.
I was standing next to George Clooney.
The slate clapped.
“Action!”
Up the escalator we went.
For maybe thirty seconds.
“Cut!”
Perfect.
Nailed it.
Oscar-worthy escalator riding.
They reset us.
We did it again.
“Cut!”
Then one of the casting people walked toward me.
Uh-oh.
She pulled me aside.
“Crap,” I said. “Did I mess something up already?”
Not exactly.
They were going to use me somewhere else.
I’d been demoted.
As she explained it, the problem wasn’t my acting.
The problem was my height.
I’m 6-foot-6.
George Clooney is not.
Standing next to me on the escalator, the leading man came up somewhere around my shoulder.
The movie people apparently didn’t think making George Clooney look unusually short was the visual they were going for.
So Hollywood made its decision.
George stayed.
I went.
I was reassigned to other scenes throughout the day.
Man Hailing Cab.
Man in Lounge.
Man Looking Out Window.
Basically, I had become B-roll with a pulse.
The day had started with the casting call at 6:00 that morning.
We weren’t released until around midnight.
Eighteen hours.
Most of it was waiting.
There was plenty of catering, though.
I told Laura all about the day when I got home — the size of the production, the endless waiting, standing next to George Clooney, being forbidden from actually talking to George Clooney and, of course, being removed from his scene because I was too tall.
A little more than a day later, the catering provided one final souvenir.
I became violently sick.
I almost never get sick, but whatever got me that time absolutely flattened me.
Apparently my brief Hollywood career had included food poisoning.
Then came another kind of waiting.
The movie wouldn’t be released until December.
For months I wondered whether any of the scenes I’d been in had survived editing.
Maybe Man Hailing Cab made it.
Maybe Man in Lounge.
Maybe I’d been relegated entirely to the cutting-room floor.
December finally arrived.
Laura and I went to see Up in the Air.
And there I was.
At about 18 minutes and 35 seconds.
Profile view.
Looking out a window.
For approximately 2.1 seconds.
My entire motion-picture career.
No escalator.
No scene beside George Clooney.
No speaking part.
Just “Man Looking Out Window”.
Had I known more about IMDb at the time, apparently there was a window when I might have been able to add myself to the cast information. By the time I figured that out, the opportunity had passed.
So I don’t have an IMDb credit.
I don’t have my name rolling past on the screen.
And the thirty seconds I spent riding an escalator beside George Clooney apparently exist only in my memory and, possibly, on a hard drive buried somewhere in Hollywood.
But I have proof.
At 18:35 in Up in the Air, there’s a tall guy in profile looking out the window.
That’s me.
Two-point-one seconds.
After an eighteen-hour day, several costume changes, a demotion for being too tall, months of anticipation and the worst case of food poisoning I can remember.
And all because Laura thought it would be funny to submit her 6-foot-6 husband for a George Clooney movie without telling him.
Turns out it was.
Hollywood decided I made the leading man look too short, moved me safely away from him and still let 2.1 seconds of me sneak into the movie.
Not exactly the career launch I’d envisioned that morning.
But I made the cut.
Sometimes fifteen minutes of fame lasts about two seconds.
And sometimes that’s more than enough.
If this resonated with you, you’re not alone.
