Bad Behavior That Got Extras Fired
On the one hand, the life of an extra seems like it could be kind of fun. You get to hang out at high profile sets, meet some giant stars, make some cold, hard cash for standing around and feed off the catering tables like so many pilot fish. If you're lucky, and do whatever the opposite of stealing a scene is, you'll even rise up the ranks and become a "featured extra," that most coveted of background-acting accolades.
Step out of line, however, and you may find yourself out of the job faster than you can say "nondisclosure agreement."
Keep on reading to find out about what kinds of illicit behaviors showed extras that, in some cases, they truly were just that.
Glee-fully Tweeting a Spoiler
In 2011, film student and bit player Nicole Crowther made headlines when, after appearing as a "day player" on the hit show Glee, she tweeted out a major spoiler; specifically, that "K is PQ and Ka is PK." (More power to you if you know what that means.) Essentially, she gave away the goods on who would be named McKinley High's prom king and queen in the forthcoming season.
The reaction was swift, with producer and creator Brad Falchuck tweeting back, "Hope you're qualified to do something besides work in entertainment. Who are you to spoil something talented people have spent months to create?" Crowther later tweeted, "They are not doing reshoots because of my careless mistake so shut up haters and leave me alone. Grow up and get a life." According to Entertainment Weekly, she also claimed "that she heard the spoiler from another extra — and that she had no idea it was true until Falchuk responded to her message with angry tweets."
Not surprisingly, Crowther wasn't invited back around to the Glee background, and her casting agency reportedly suspended her for two to three weeks. Her actions had ramifications for everyone else, too; The Hollywood Reporter revealed that "The studio is considering amending all of its talent deals – from series regulars to day players like Crowther – to include strict punishments for blabbing online."
Now if someone would just implement the same thing for politicians ...
Going to town at craft services
The truth is out there. And for your mom's favorite Canadian crooner and The X-Files Season 3 extra Michael Bublé (yes, that Michael Bublé), the truth is simple: if you get caught stealing hot dogs from craft services, you're fired.
Bublé opened up to TV Line about the blunder that led to his immediate dismissal, saying, "I swear to god, I was starving and I grabbed a hot dog off the craft services table... And this woman said I would never work again in Hollywood. I would be blacklisted and I would never, ever work in the business!"
Clearly the Grammy Award-winning Bublé got the last laugh in the end; we just hope the hot dog was worth it.
Being chatty Kathys
Back in October 2016, rumors spread that extras on the set of NBC's Chicago P.D. were getting the ax for being too friendly to one of the show's stars. It all started when some Tweeters got into it with the show's star, actress Sophia Bush, on Twitter, after Bush tweeted about Donald Trump firing contestants on The Apprentice for engaging in "locker room talk."
Twitter user @FiredGrover replied, "You've gotten people fired for less than that. You gotten people fired for just saying hi to you on set." Bush jumped to deny the allegation and defend herself, posting an extensive explanation of how extras are expected to comport themselves on the set. @FiredGrover then replied, "If they said hi to you even in the Lunch Catoring Line? They would still be fired."
Nothing has been confirmed, but if you feel like reading the entire exchange, you can have at here.
Veering into Mommy Dearest territory
Remember Tammy? Okay, to be honest, we don't really either. But one extra definitely has it burned into her memory, considering she was asked by the film's star, Melissa McCarthy, to leave the set immediately.
As reported by TMZ, the extra had brought her child along with her to the shoot, and had been trying to discipline the little one all day and "constantly harping on the child to "stop it" and quiet down." At one point, the background player reportedly "harshly jerked the child up in the air by the wrist," in front of McCarthy and the rest of the cast and crew.
An incensed McCarthy apparently immediately asked an assistant to fire the woman, saying that "abuse" wouldn't be tolerated on her set.
Posting sketchy photos
Considering that Neighbors 2 star Zac Efron has been openly sober for a number of years now, it wasn't exactly the smartest move to post a photo to Instagram of a bag of (fake) marijuana with the caption "Thanks for the weed Zac Efron! BTW it's only a prop, people."
But, we live in unpredictable times, and that's exactly what an extra on the set of the movie did in October 2015. The not-so-shocking result? He was swiftly fired (though Efron reportedly had nothing to do with the decision).
Blabbing to the press
Not surprisingly, the entire cast and crew of 2008's hotly-anticipated follow-up Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull were forced to sign non-disclosure agreements to prevent them from spilling the beans on closely-guarded plot secrets. But that didn't stop young Tyler Nelson (who'd been cast as a "dancing Russian soldier") from yapping to his hometown paper, Oklahoma's The Edmond Sun, in September 2007, and revealing a number of spoilers about the forthcoming film.
Director Steven Spielberg was reportedly extremely P.O.'d about Nelson's inability to keep details about the film under wraps (as he was contractually obligated to do), to the point that Spielberg's spokesman noted to Page Six, "Who knows whether that particular person will ever work in this town again?" Shiver.
In quite the reversal, Nelson himself declined to speak to Page Six, but when reached for comment, his rep at Thomas Talent Agency said, "He's in trouble. He's got to know that he can't do that." A few weeks later, the actor reportedly settled a lawsuit with the film's producers (terms were not disclosed).
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you burn your relationship with Steven Spielberg to the ground before it even gets built.