TV & Movie Extras
How to be an Extra on Grimm
My Grimm Experience, by Carol Bianchini
In early February 2012, I had the privilege of being selected as an extra for the NBC series “Grimm” for two days. OK, so it was my car mainly that they wanted. They were shooting a scene in the Pearl District of Portland, Oregon, and I evidently had an appropriate vehicle for shopping there.
The weather was cold, but Universal Studios provided us with hot meals, snacks, coffee or tea aplenty and the crew were very friendly. We were part of “the process” and the cold didn’t matter. Two of the extras, a Beaverton engineer who had just recovered from a major illness and a relocated New York musician was filming a video journal of his experience on set, were all excited to be there. We were made up of professional career people to students. Many of us had no acting skills and some didn’t even know what the show was about. I was appalled having been a dedicated Grimm follower since the beginning so I filled them in on what they’d been missing.
The first night the stars came out right away. When we walked on set there was Detective Hank Griffin! Russell Hornsby! A few scenes were filmed and we were introduced to our new home “The Tent” by our extras wrangler. Later Claire Coffee, Adalind Engel, the Hexabeast, came strolling into the snack room and we saw Russell again in a fight scene with another actor later that evening. The second evening at dinner time Silas Weir Mitchell or Eddie Monroe, the Blutbad (Wolf), came in to chat jovially with the chef. Eddie is one of my favorite characters with his quick quips and dry humor. Unfortunately he didn’t stay. Then our luck changed. The Star of the show, David Giuntoli or Detective Nick Burkhardt, sat a table over from us. David looked up and smiled at us during dinner. The musician claimed it was at him, but I jokingly disagreed that it had be at our table of extras, which he then made a snide comment about the sweater I was wearing. In reality, I’m sure it was at all of us and his warmth and greeting was appreciated by all of us newbies.
My car was filmed parked on the street. It was moved back and forth getting the shot just right. I might have a blurry moment where you’ll see me as one of two shadows in a Porsche SUV where the engineer and I chitchatted about how to get a picture of her “Flat Stanley” on the set. She’d received Stanley from a child in the Midwest and was trying to get STAR treatment for Stanley before sending him on to the next destination! Yep, you guessed it. One of the crew snapped a photo of Stanley with the scene in the background. What a great bunch of people and such a fun show. Check out Grimm or apply to be an extra! Cheers!
