For some reason, I have had the Tears For Fears song “Head Over Heels” in my head for a couple days, which reminds me of the hallway scene from Donnie Darko, a movie which I remember when it was being filmed. I knew it would become sort of a cult classic, and I went ad far as to research the casting agent and try to get on it as an extra but wasn’t ever able to get ahold of anyone.

I did however manage to be in several scenes of the Kirsten Dunst movie “Crazy Beautiful”(which at the time had a working title of “At Seventeen”) which did not become a cult classic and is a mostly forgotten piece of shit. In fact, I was so poor at the time that the money I spent on the bus back from Palisades High School where it was shot, was literally my last dollar.

One of the scenes that my friend Mark Schoenecker and I worked on in this film, was in the bleachers of a high school football game. And they made us stand there and hold up these cardboard people to make it look like there were more people in the stands than there actually were. After about 5 minutes, Schoenecker was like “Fuck this, man, let’s get out of here. I’m not going to be holding up one of those cardboard MF’s.” So put down our cardboard counterparts, and we just up and left without getting paid or anything.

I still have never seen the film, as there were a couple close up scenes.. and I was so malnourished in that era that I’m mortified of what I must look like in it if they used any shots that I was in.

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Filed under: Uncategorized - @ March 13, 2010 3:01 pm

Tags: at seventeen, crazy beautiful, donnie darko, extra crap, extra work, head over heels, in the year 2000, los angeles, mark schoenecker, pacific palisades, palisades high, summer of 2000, tears for fears, working as an extra, year 2000