Hundreds of extras in “Leatherheads” gathered for the movie’s premier
Well, I made it!
After anxiously and excitedly waiting for over a year to see if my once-in-a-lifetime experience working on the set of the new Hollywood movie Leatherheads, starring George Clooney, Renee Zellweger, and John Krasinski which hit theaters nationwide on Friday, actually resulted in face time in the movie, I’m thrilled and honored to announce I’m IN the movie!!! WOO HOO!!! Sweeeeet! Can you tell I’m stoked?!
Christine and I couldn’t wait to visit our local movie theater here in Spartanburg, South Carolina just after noon for the first showing of Leatherheads to see if my scene as The Doorman opposite Clooney himself ended up in the final version. I was pretty confident that it would since this was the ONLY thing we worked on for an entire Sunday filming about 30-45 seconds worth of a scene. I was looking for it and within 15 minutes of watching the flick on the silver screen, there it was:
That big tall guy on the left standing there looking down with a condescending face at Clooney’s character coming off of his motorcycle–THAT’S ME (CLICK HERE to see a blown-up version of this still shot)! In all, this scene was about 8 seconds long total and I was on screen for about 5 seconds. It wasn’t much screen time when you think about a two-hour movie, but I felt extremely fortunate to have gotten that much time. Many of the hundreds of extras either got a flash-in-the-pan blip on the screen or nothing at all. I was indeed lucky and appreciated the opportunity to be a part of something so special.
Now, Christine on the other hand was as giddy as a schoolgirl when she saw me standing there and couldn’t keep quiet. As soon as she realized that was me standing at attention next to George Clooney on that spittin’-and-sputterin’ motorcycle in front of the hotel, I thought they were gonna throw her out of the theater for causing such a ruckus. She started whoopin’ and hollerin’ pointing her finger up at the screen saying, “Oh my God, there you are, oh my God, there you are!” I tried to get her to put her hand down and lower her voice as people were starting to stare. She was proud and happy to see her man in a real live movie. What a neat moment I’ll always treasure for the rest of my life.
Just a couple of hours after the matinee showing of Leatherheads at our local theater, Christine and I got all dressed up in our formal attire and headed down the road a few miles to Greenville, South Carolina where a group of several hundred extras got together to watch the movie together and to reminisce about our time on the set of a Hollywood film. It was neat meeting up with many of the extras who I shared hours upon hours of waiting and waiting and waiting with last year just so we could make it to this moment of glory. Everyone was grateful this time had come and we even got the royal treatment from the local press, too.
They rolled out the Red Carpet for us and had local television personality Jack Roper from CBS affiliate WSPA Newschannel 7 on hand to announce our names as people gathered along both sides of the carpet cheering for us and taking our pictures as we entered the movie theater (when he introduced me and Christine, Jack said, “Next up we have Jimmy Moore and his friend.” Uh, yeah, she’s my friend known as my WIFE, Jack! I quickly corrected him to stay out of the doghouse). Okay, now that was weird! But I liked it and ate it up, baby! How often do you get a chance to do something that this, right? 
As the movie was getting close to the end, I leaned over to Christine and said that we should leave early (since we had already seen the film once that day) to beat the crowd over to the BMW Zentrum where the after-party would be taking place. She agreed and we headed out the door. Three seconds later we heard this loud explosion as a bright light filled the stormy sky–a transformer had blown from the major thunderstorm that was moving through the area and the entire block immediately went black. Boy, that was great timing! It turns out the movie had JUST ended and the closing credits were showing, so nobody missed any of the movie itself.
At the earlier showing, we stayed all the way through the ending credits to see if my name would be there as “The Doorman.” It wasn’t. I guess they only put your name in there if you had a speaking part and I did not have one–although it was VERY close to happening. Interestingly, even if I did end up having that speaking role in the scene I was in, it would have been cut. They chopped off the last 5 seconds of that scene where the line was scheduled to happen and went right to the next scene where Clooney’s character clashes with Zellweger’s character inside the hotel. Oh well!
All in all, this romantic comedy set in the 1920s about the birth of professional football is a fun movie to watch and I was humbled to be able to play even a teeny tiny little role in it. I’m thankful for the memories that I have from this experience and if given another chance to be an extra in a Hollywood film, I’m there! Actually, there is supposed to be another movie being shot down the road in Columbia, South Carolina real soon and I’m seriously thinking of pursuing it, too. I’ve got the itch now that’s just gotta be scratched. 
At the after-party, I was interviewed by a reporter from The Greenville News and they quoted me first in their story. It was an unbelievable experience that will give me something to talk about besides livin’ la vida low-carb for the rest of my life. If you haven’t seen Leatherheads yet, then do yourself a favor and GO SEE IT! It’s a great film that just about anyone will love and enjoy.
Here’s the trailer in case you’ve missed it:
You can read all of my blog posts and see lots of pictures I took while on the set of Leatherheads at my “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb Links” blog. Special THANKS to Jim Fair who created the extras web site TheLeatherheads.com and organized the Red Carpet Gala for us to treasure this moment. It’s one I won’t soon forget! And I can’t wait to buy the DVD this Fall!
