How to Get Cast as an Extra in a Movie

Be a Movie Star in Your Spare Time

Any site or so-called agency is trying to sell you head shots or portfolios to become an extra, run. You are being scammed. You will only need one or two photos at the most and a Polaroid or digital photo will do. This reminds me, there is NO SUCH THING as special digitally formatted photos for extra work. I ran across one company that on top of the $300.00 registration fee charged $75.00 for a specialized digitally formatted photo that will be fed into a data base that ONLY top studios and directors have access to. No such data base exists.

There are really only a handful of legitimate extra casting agencies around. They are located in or very near to Hollywood and Burbank, California. You may find a few in New York and Florida. Now Casting Directors will from time to time cast for extras in a movie, but they are not extra casting agencies.

Real extra casting agencies are just like other agencies, they usually have one or two days a week where you can register. Some will only see you by appointment. There is a registration fee ranging from $15.00 to $35.00. I’m going to use Cenex Central Casting, 220 South Flower Street, Burbank, California 91502. Cenex charge a registration fee of $20.00. They handle both union and nonunion extras. As far as I know they don’t handle children. I will give you the information on an extra casting agency that handles children later in this article. Cenex allow walk-in registration Tuesdays and Thursdays for union extras, and Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for nonunion extras. You can only walk in between the hours of 10:30am and 11:30am each day. Yep you have one whole hour in which they are willing to see you. You will need to bring a few 3X5 or 8X10 photos. If you don’t they may charge you a fee to take a photo. You will also need to bring a copy of your social security card, so you can get paid.

Once you register, each night you call a number between a certain time slots, usually only a few hours. They will list all of the extra work they have for the next day. So you only call the night before you wish to work. If you find something you like, you will have to call another number and if there are openings they will tell you where to show up the next day and what time. They will also tell you what to wear. Some will require a casting call, but most just need bodies to walk down a street or sit in a crowd. Extras don’t go to wardrobe or makeup for the most part. Extra work pays in the range of $75.00 to $125.00 per day. Like I said you will not get rich, but it’s a fun way to earn extra cash.