In the early 2010s, Cape Girardeau, MO was chosen as a location for some of the filming of Gone Girl. I lived there and it was the talk of the town. People were running into Ben Affleck at the local Andy’s and shit.
Meanwhile they put out a casting call for extras. I didn’t care about it but of course my girlfriend and her cousin went psycho about it and signed us up. We waited in line with at least a thousand other people only to finally get up there, and all they did was take a headshot and send us on our way. The girls were all disappointed that there wasn’t anything else to it while I the introvert just laughed about it.
Until I was the one they called back. Not only that, but it turns out they picked me to be a stand-in for Boyd Holbrook. I spent a week hanging out on David Fincher’s set, occasionally doing work while trying to avoid getting in trouble for doing things like accidentally sitting in Rosamund Pike’s chair. Then one of the assistant directors’ mother died and he had to leave, so they “promoted” me to production assistant. At one point I was sent to look for and found David Fincher’s missing iPhone.
Fucking surreal man. But I’ve got the 20th Century Fox W-2s to prove it.
Unfortunately I didn’t get to have a conversation with him. But he did seem nice.