In 1995, I was cast as an extra in the Superman Returns movie. At the time I was really excited as I’ve always been a fan of Superman and Smallville (the series). I was due to be on set by 8 am but the night before I received a call saying they wanted me on location by 4.30 am as they wanted to use me in the opening shot. Early mornings are not something I miss from my Nursing practicums but I saw it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The next morning, I managed to get into the city by 4.30 but we ended up sitting around until 8 am or so in one of the hotel conference rooms. They provided us with breakfast but I didn’t end up eating much in case I needed a bathroom break later. Then again, I’m not usually hungry so early in the morning.

After getting the OK for my costume, I headed into hair and makeup (even though they’d asked us to do it ourselves). My role was to look like a uni student, hence the backpack, but the two other outfits they asked me to bring were never used. This meant I had to lug them around the entire day.

It turned out to be a very long and freezing Sydney day in July with the shoot ending at 5.50 pm. By late morning, I really started to feel the weight of a full backpack plus having to look up at the sky for hours made my neck and shoulder really sore by the end of it.

That night, I did a search for the movie and found this on Superman Homepage. It gives a nice description of what we did that whole day with pics and even a short video of what they saw while filming.

Basically, we had three scenes to shoot. The first involved everyone rushing through the street just after a ‘big disaster’ had occurred. This was filmed ~15 times. The next scene had our hero flying through the city with everyone looking up at the sky while a camera suspended by a wire whooshed past us. We all had to jump backwards as we reacted to his superspeed as the camera passed. The third involved a small group (including myself) who were directed to walk slowly to our marks and look up at Superman hovering in the air. Unfortunately, when the film came out, the last scene involving our closeup did not make the movie as another group was used.

All-in-all, it was a pretty memorable experience and even though you can’t really see me in the movie, it’s just nice to say I had a small part to play. Navi and I went to see it at the cinema soon after its release.

This post is part of IntPiPoMo – posting 50 screenshots in 30 days.

#IntPiPoMo 23/50