Have you ever watched something and noticed someone famous (or not) in the background?
I was watching Impractical Jokers and one of the children they interacted with looked familiar and it bugged me until I figured it was Iain Armitage (young sheldon) he was about 6 and blonde! I looked it up and after a few googles found out it was him… his parents are producers of shows so now I am questioning Impractical Jokers a little.
Also Amy Shumer was in the audience of Judge Judge so my son tells me…
This surprised me the first time I noticed it. In the film, Chariots of Fire about half an hour in, there’s a training montage accompanied by a men’s chorus singing “He Remains an Englishman” from Gilbert & Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore. The montage ends with several of the featured characters on stage dressed as sailors on the Pinafore, singing the song. Look over their shoulders–there’s young Stephen Fry among the chorus in the back row.
I do this all the time. If I’m watching something on DVD at home, I’ve sometimes paused the movie to look up on IMDB who that familiar-looking actor is. I saw Black Panther in the theater yesterday and couldn’t figure out who the general was, until I saw the closing credits and realized it was the lead actor from Get Out.
I was visiting Las Vegas once and had the hotel TV on the local news. They were interviewing people about some local community concern, don’t remember what it was, maybe crime.
I heard a familiar voice being interviewed and looked up to see Penn Gillette of Penn & Teller fame. The caption just said “local resident” and he was speaking to the reporter seriously about the topic on hand, no hint or mention of his celebrity during the whole bit.
I do this all the time as well. It’s even become a thing between my wife and I; she’s not so good at it and I’ll be like, “Hey, it’s that guy from such-and-such!”, and she’ll squint and not believe me, and we’ll look it up and then I’ll have 5 minutes of glory before I realize I still didn’t put the laundry away.
My proudest moment came just last week, when we were watching the original Out-of-Towners, from 1970, and I recognized not one, but two guys who would later go on to be in Seinfeld. One of the cops that is taking them to the hotel but gets sidetracked with a liquor store robbery was Jerry’s dad in the first episode (and was later replaced), and the guy who kicks them out of the church because “it’s closed” is Jack Klompus, of the “famous astronaut pen” episode. Boom.
Many years ago, I was watching an episode of Unexplained Mysteries, and one of the interviewees was a, eh, ‘haunted train operator.’ The listed name was Bill Pentland. For some odd reason at the time, I recognized that as the name of an ex-Roseanne husband. Sure enough, it was. No mention of Roseanne, though.
Not a familiar face, but a very familiar location . . .
The movie Promised Land was filmed in western Pennsylvania, right near our home. I never bothered watching the movie after hearing a synopsis of the plot.
Well, fast forward six years. I’ve totally forgotten about the film and it comes up as a suggestion on Netflix. I’m watching the movie and out of nowhere I see our friend’s farm market (renamed “Guns, Guitars, and Gas” or similar). I was freaked out!!
I usually do as well. Mothman Prophesies was filmed five minutes from where I am right now. But Promised Land sounded lousy (it was) so I “put it off” indefinitely.
I grew up in the Husdon Valley and we were amused to see the Hurley Mountain Inn in Tootsie. I think at the time it had a deer’s head above the entrance.
I was channel surfing and came across a show on the History Channel about ancient Rome, and I caught just a couple seconds of some professor talking about ancient art, or something. He looked familiar, and it finally came to me that he reminded me an awful lot of Peter Weller. I watched for a little while in case they showed him again. They did, and it was Peter Weller!
IMDb has made that kind of thing much easier than it used to be. I still manage to figure them out on my own sometimes. I was watching Breaking Away a while ago, and one of the college jocks that’s hassling the main characters looked familiar. It took a while, but I figured out it was the same actor who played Ellis in Die Hard.
locations too!
My son showed me the trailer for Super Troopers part 2 … I never saw part 1, but I was watching it and for about 2 seconds they show a car chase scene and I yell “Hey that’s the Quabbin” ( a local reservoir that takes up a lot of land in central Mass) I swear 2 seconds blink and you miss it… then I remembered it going around facebook that a movie was being filmed there a while ago… ha ha Super Troopers 2
Ever been surprised by who you didn’t see in a movie?
In the 90s the movie Kingpin was filmed in western Pennsylvania. Woody Harrelson, Bill Murray, Chris Elliot, Randy Quaid; a really great lineup. A friend of mine took some time off work to try to get a glimpse of the stars. He was a big guy with long hair and beard. Someone approached and hired him as an extra!
So, my friend worked on the movie for three days! He was so excited. He got a VHS tape at some point and invited us all to his home to watch his motion picture debut. It was a great movie, but he only appears in the closing credits and if you blink you miss him. Three days of filming for two seconds of film.
Yup! In the 80’s my cousin was in the service and called home to say he was an extra in Magnum PI … we watched. Never saw him. ( I’m going to bring this up next holiday…hee hee)
On the opposite side of that, I worked as an extra for a carnival scene in a movie. They kept putting me in every shot doing something different (even though there were dozens and dozens of extras there. I don’t know, I guess they just liked my look.). I thought that it would screw up the continuity to have me be working the booth in one shot, and then buying a hot dog in the very next shot, then riding the ride in the next shot. When I saw the finished product, that is exactly what happened. Obviously it didn’t disrupt the shots as I was definitely background, but it was kinda silly if you noticed.
Speaking of locations… several years ago my wife and I were on vacation in Seattle. One day some friends took us on a day trip out to the Port Townsend / Fort Worden area on the Olympic peninsula. As we were driving through Fort Worden, I got this weird feeling of deja vu, like “this looks really familiar” even though I had never been there before. Suddenly it hit me. “Holy shit! This is where they filmed An Officer and a Gentleman!”
I have several friends who have started doing background work or commercials. It was amusing to watch the Superbowl commercials and think “wait is that??”
