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- For seven years, background actors have been recognizing their own at the ceremony.
- In some ways, the background actor awards are not unlike the efforts from other categories of actors, such as stunt performers, to demand more respect from the industry.
- The coveted prize? A mini Oscar-esque statuette known as a Blurry.
Striking a distinguished look in a gray suit with coiffed white hair, Vincent Teixeira stepped up to the podium, standing in front of fellow film and TV actors who filled the house at the 99-seat Eastwood Performing Arts Center in East Hollywood.
Like an old-timey silent movie performer, he then began gesturing with his arms and soundlessly mouthed words.
He paused for effect, before delivering the punchline. “Oh, we get to speak tonight,” he said, to laughs and applause from the crowd.
Teixeira’s joke especially resonated with this particular audience — nominees and supporters of the annual Los Angeles Union Background Actors Awards. People came dressed in tuxedos and full-length gowns, though others were in jeans and casual button-downs, to honor a category of performer better known for fading into the edges of the frame than assuming the spotlight.
For seven years, background actors have been recognizing their own at the ceremony — a show not televised or affiliated with the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, many were careful to say, though all of the nominees must be SAG-AFTRA members and several union representatives were in attendance.
As Hollywood goes through vast technological, financial and global change, the state’s cornerstone entertainment industry and its workers face a hard reality: Lost jobs may never come back.
The coveted prize? A mini Oscar-esque statuette known as a Blurry.
There are Blurries for best first responder look, best background actor ensemble and favorite casting director. The group even handed out a lifetime achievement award honoring Patrick Harrigan, a longtime background actor who has worn many hats over the years and got his start as a 12-year-old in the 1969 film “Hello, Dolly!”
Attendees had appeared in shows such as Netflix’s “A Man on the Inside,” medical drama “Doctor Odyssey” and FX thriller “Grotesquerie,” though they’d be far from household names. They gathered in the lobby of the theater, taking photos on the small red carpet in front of a backdrop bearing the award show’s name, or catching up while buying drinks and munchies from the small snack bar. Inside the theater, the stage was sparse, with only a floor-to-ceiling screen with the show’s logo.
The Blurries are, at times, tongue-in-cheek, as presenters poked fun at Hollywood and themselves, but the humor belies a more serious point — these are actors who desire respect, both from their colleagues and the industry.
“It’s part of Hollywood,” Harrigan told The Times. “We’re also in front of the camera, and we’re an important part of TV and film.”
The role of a background actor is intentionally subtle.
They populate film and TV sets to make the on-screen world more vibrant and real. Their silent but purposeful presence gives energy to the principal actors, helping to create an environment where they can inhabit their roles. They’re the other patrons at the “Friends” coffee hangout Central Perk; the other drinkers at the “Cheers” bar; the nonsinging and dancing Munchkins who gathered to greet Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz.”
Years ago, the awards committee tossed around names like the “Backie” — a nod to “background actor” — but it was the Blurry that stuck. After all, that’s what background actors are.
“It’s our job to be blurry. We don’t stand out,” said Vincent Amaya, chair of the awards committee, who has been a background actor for 17 years. “I get more work the blurrier I am. If I’m featured, I’m not on that show again, unless it’s as the same character.”
The homegrown awards show subsists entirely on ticket sales, which range from $20 to $40, depending on the time of purchase — and the occasional donation — and has never turned a profit, he said. Regardless, the show goes on.
“It brings recognition to background actors,” said Amaya, who has helped run the event for years. “We need to show we are professionals, and we are needed.”
In some ways, the background actor awards are not unlike the efforts from other categories of actors, such as stunt performers, to demand more respect from the industry. And like many in Hollywood, background actors have faced a difficult last few years.
First, there was the pandemic, which shut down productions and limited acting opportunities. In 2023, they endured the dual writers’ and actors’ strikes, where many of them picketed alongside their more recognizable colleagues.
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More recently, the Southern California fires destroyed homes and disrupted their livelihoods. Looming over everything is the constant stream of productions moving out of L.A. to other states and countries.
“I’m sure the locusts are on the way,” quipped show host Mike Siegel, a stand-up comedian who has hosted shows on HGTV and TBS, and poked fun at himself for his own anonymity.
But his onstage remarks quickly took a more serious tone.
“We’re celebrating people here who show up,” he said during his monologue. “Don’t let anyone demean what you do.”
When the awards committee tossed around names for their statuette years ago, Blurry was the one that stuck. “It’s our job to be blurry. We don’t stand out,” said Vincent Amaya.
Unlike a typical awards show, the acceptance speeches didn’t include laundry lists of thank yous to studio heads. Instead, winners often thanked their fellow nominees or other crew members for helping them get jobs, reiterated the importance of their work or took the moment to address specific concerns for their profession.
For some, that starts with addressing the colloquial term for background actors — “extras” — which some bristle at.
“Can we please stop calling each other ‘extras’?” Karen Shelton Brown, the best female background actor winner, said during her acceptance speech. “I am not an extra. We all are actors.”
Harrigan, the lifetime achievement award recipient, called for a very public sign of respect — a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for background actors.
“We’ve been in front of the camera for over 100 years. But we’re not really recognized,” he said. “I know it sounds really weird ... but, you know, stranger things have happened.”
Even that small piece of recognition would be a start for folks taking on such an unglamorous, anonymous role. Early morning call times, 14-hour days and performing in inclement weather are all part of the gig.
Wendy Alter, 65, remembered a five-day shoot on the set of the NBC drama “This Is Us,” where she and other actors filmed near a pool in Long Beach in 40 degree weather, while it was raining.
“It was absolutely freezing,” she said. The producers, crew and cast “were trying to be as good as they could to us, but it’s not easy.”
Originally from Beaumont, Texas, Alter first got into background acting to learn her way around L.A. and meet people. That was in 1998, and she has been doing it ever since. A full-time background actor, she spent six years with “This is Us” and nine years on the sitcom “Modern Family,” where she also worked as a stand-in for Rico Rodriguez, who played Manny Delgado, and Ariel Winter, who starred as Alex Dunphy.
“I enjoy the aspect of watching the creation come through with actors and set dressing and our producers and just the whole aspect of this industry,” said Alter, who worked as an executive vice president of a jewelry store chain before coming to Hollywood. “Every day is like a new day; it’s never the same.”
Alter later presented the award for best male background actor, a title that rewarded the performer with a quiet but masterful presence, she said on stage, who helped create a world that was “genuine” and “alive.”
Nominees were judged on their professionalism by a secret committee that has, on average, more than 20 years of experience in the background acting space.
Past categories have also included best time period look, an award for background actors who are over 18 but whose youthful looks mean they can play teenagers (crucial for high school shows); and one for special ability, which can include any unique skill such as archery, juggling, bowling or a musical instrument. After all, every movie with a rock concert needs a drummer.
Last year, Scott Perry and his fellow background actors from the Disney+ “Star Wars” hit “The Mandalorian” won for best ensemble. In true showbiz fashion, the event’s bartender came out with the rest of the attendees to accept the award.
This year, Perry won for best featured background actor for his work in the sitcom “Night Court.” Though he didn’t utter a word, the chance to stand toe-to-toe with public defender Dan Fielding, played by actor John Larroquette, in front of a live studio audience was “unreal,” he told The Times.
“I’ve grown out my beard, so I’m a lot more distinct-looking ... a lot less background-y,” he said, with a laugh, gesturing to the bushy salt-and-pepper facial hair that accentuated his black tuxedo. “When I do get hired, I’m actually featured a lot more often.”
Marketing and consulting work pays the bills for Perry, who is in his 50s, so background acting is his secondary gig. But he puts in the hours to improve his craft, taking classes at the SAG-AFTRA Los Angeles Conservatory and learning everything he can about the business.
He’s concerned about the future implications of artificial intelligence in production, but such technology — at least for now — is expensive. Background actors are a lot cheaper, he said. (In the most recent SAG-AFTRA contract, the union negotiated a provision to put guardrails on usage of digital replicas of actors, which included additional protections for background actors.)
“Maybe that’s our salvation right now,” he said.
Despite the challenges, the mood at the awards show was congenial, with attendees shouting out to one another on stage, in the lobby and from their cars as they pulled into the parking lot. Winners like Farrah Hines, 48, collected hugs along the theater’s stairs after receiving awards onstage.
Winning the Blurry for best female single-cam stand-in was especially meaningful for Hines, who said she commuted from Las Vegas to L.A. every week for four years to get acting work and maintain health insurance for her kids.
She got her start as a stand-in on the Tia and Tamera Mowry sitcom “Sister, Sister” in 1998, but eventually took a 15-year break from the business to raise a family. (Stand-ins substitute for actors to help the crew with lighting, camera blocking and other behind-the-scenes work so the shoot can stay on time and budget; stand-ins on multi-camera sitcoms will also deliver lines to see if the jokes land as written.)
After her children grew into teenagers and she completed a divorce, she chose to get back into acting. She’s a full-time stuntwoman, in addition to her stand-in work, which includes ABC procedural “High Potential” and a previous gig on Disney’s “Ahsoka,” standing in for Rosario Dawson. In February, she and her kids moved to Redondo Beach, ending her multi-hour weekly commutes.
“As long as I can stand up, I will stand in,” said Hines during her acceptance speech. The audience, free to make noise, applauded.
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