August 2006, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

By Amanda Brown

I’ve always been shy.

Around 8, I was in Disney World with my parents when we happened to walk by a show just as the actors were interacting with the audience. A Blues Brothers dancer pulled me into the congo line for “Let Me See You Shake Your Tail Feather.” I was too shy to say no, so I quietly joined in.

My parents had lost track of me only to look up and see me on stage, dancing with strangers, unabashedly bobbing and shaking my tail feather.

Twenty years later, I walked into another uncomfortable situation, except I wouldn’t just be shaking my tail feather; my tail found itself starring in a sex scene. Like so many stories, mine began when I answered an ad on Craigslist: “Movie Production Needs Extras/Stand-ins.”

Pittsburgh is ripe for film production, but this was the rust belt; hardly anyone lived here anymore. So they hired me. In a mining town of decreasing population, I could pass for a famous actress — at least until the cameras rolled. And I was OK with that.

Months after I answered the call for extras for Michael Chabon’s book and now film, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, I was asked to be a stand-in for Mena Suvari.

Apparently, Mena and I, while not twins, have some resemblance (both brunettes, shortish with somewhat of athletic builds – if I only worked out). My attributes had propelled me to office servitude, hers into multimillion-dollar film roles. I was the poor man’s Mena, the knockoff purse.

I asked my boss for a day off and went home to practice looking like Mena. Should I straighten my wavy hair? Put it half-up? Cover myself in rose petals and writhe on the floor, naked, á la American Beauty? I was getting a little nervous. What if they took one look at me and sent me home?

I arrived early to the set, an empty storefront mocked up to be a bookstore, and they acted as if I was late. “There you are!”

The director asked me if I had ever been a stand-in before.

“No,” I replied.

“OK, did they tell you this was a sex scene?”

I laughed; this must be how they loosen up new stand-ins. He wasn’t kidding.

“No really, it’s a sex scene. You’re going to have to be in some pretty embarrassing positions. You okay with that?”

“Will I be clothed?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant, even though I felt like a shy 8-year-old in the middle of a congo line.

He assured me that I’d be clothed, handed me the script, and pulled me into the back of the “bookstore,” where the actors were doing a read-through. The room was dark, except for the well-lit pile of boxes where Mena, playing Phlox, was bent over as actor Jon Foster (aka Art) approached her slowly from behind.

As I watched, the wardrobe director buttoned a men’s large white shirt on my 5-foot-1-inch frame so that my colors would match Mena’s, who donned a cute, white fitted shirt and a playful red skirt.

As the read-through progressed, I was a handed a stained yellow polo shirt to wear over the white shirt to mimic Mena’s sweater. By the time they got me a red skirt to put over my jeans, I looked like I had participated in some sort of clothes relay and lost.

Feeling vulnerable and badly dressed, I attempted to engage in small talk with my co-star, stand-in Art.

“So, where do you work?” he asked.

I told him about my day job at a local nonprofit.

“So you’re the one that got that job. I was your competition.” Stand-in Art actually glared. “Yeah, since I didn’t get that full-time job, I had to move back in with my parents. I had to take this minimum-wage stand-in job.”

I looked down and pretended to study the script. Life could have thrown me a friendly, mildly attractive, co-star in what could be the only staged sex scene of my life, but no, this was to be my begrudging partner. Is this some modern-day expression of bad karma?

My eyes darted down the script, and I started to feel faint. Fight or flight kicked in. I was compelled to run away and never look back on this poor decision. Or could I grin and bear it?

I’m not exactly a prude. I’m just the kind of girl that is careful not to bend over indiscreetly in low-rise jeans, let alone bend over boxes while a stranger mounts me (especially one with a vendetta). The actors soon left for their air-conditioned dressing rooms. As well-groomed Mena walked past me, the wildly imperfect facsimile of her, she nodded “Hello.” Hello superstar!

“Could you take your positions?”

Time to shake my tail feather again. I heaved myself onto the box, mimicking the bent-over stance I had seen Mena in. About a dozen men and a handful of women, hopefully the crew and not just voyeurs, surrounded me in a semicircle. The lights were intensely hot, and I began to sweat in my layers of clothes.

On a monitor, I watched the scene I was starring in. The camera sat level with my torso, my flushed face in central focus; I observed stand-in Art approach me from behind, calling out “Phlox? Are you in here?”

I was instructed to glance over my shoulder seductively.

“Now come up right behind her. Grab her hips, if you two don’t mind.”

It was consensual. No sense in doing this half-assed (pun intended). And here we froze for several hours, me bent over a box, him standing at my rear and gripping my tail. Different cameras angles were tried, reflecting screens tilted, and background tchotchkes exchanged.

The box was too high; my lower back pulsed with pain, and my legs wobbled. I shifted the weight in my legs, careful not to rub against the groin of the cranky guy in the back. By hour five, I sagged my back and laid my head down but was reprimanded. “Could you keep your pose? What’s wrong? Are you uncomfortable?”

Yes, very, I thought. Not only was I in physical pain, but I had bragged to everyone about my stand-in role. They were sure to ask questions. My inquisitive boss. My conservative parents.

I thought back to what the casting agent had said when she phoned me: “This is going to be a fun scene. I think you’ll enjoy it.”

Now I understand her giggles. She was laughing at me.

Out of diminishing pride, I really did my best to stay still for the camera and tried not to think of what my parents would say if they could see me now. The low point was when the cinematographer burst in and declared that the lights were too much; my face was fading into white light. The lighting specialist, offended at the prospect of having his skill questioned, said “No, she’s just a lot paler than Mena.”

After several hours of this prolonged pose, we were released so that the actors could attempt a take. Mena offered a kind “thank you” as I creaked by with an achy back and a damaged ego. I heard the real Art exclaim, “Is this the sock I’m supposed to wear?”

We were quickly banished from the closed set so the nakedness could commence.

It was a 12-hour day where I made a whopping $50 and gained major empathy for chess pawns, mannequins and blow-up dolls. The next day, my back was so sore, I could hardly walk.

“How was the stand-in gig?” My boss asked. “And what’s wrong with your back?” I shook my tail feather again.

Amanda Brown is a freelance writer currently based in Vancouver, B.C. She has a graduate degree in cultural studies from Carnegie Mellon University and has been published in Bust and Seattle Magazine. She writes about work culture and feminism, as well as how pop culture is made and how it makes us.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 | Email This Post

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