The first reference to extras appears 20 pages deep into the industry's June 12 safety report on COVID-19 protocols. "Background holding areas must be larger than customary to accommodate physical distancing," states the paper, a joint effort from the DGA, SAG-AFTRA and IATSE.
But for thousands of full-time background actors, the fate of their livelihoods is very much top of mind — and the prognosis does not look good. "Crowd scenes make my year," says veteran casting director Sande Alessi, whose specialty is extras.
She's filled frames of the Pirates of the Caribbean films with pirates and maidens, convincingly re-created anti-U.S. protests in Argo and broke her own record on Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds, employing 1,500 extras..