A funny thing happened to me
You never think of film extras getting stage fright, corpsing or being starstruck, but a brief encounter with a major British star of cinema properly paralysed Barry Watts.
“I remember it well,” he says. “The day on Folkestone Railway Station some years ago when I had a very brief and silent encounter with the magnificent Michael Caine.” Caine was filming Is Anybody There? Barry, 77, from Dover, was working as a lifeguard at Folkestone Sports
Centre at the time. He had also been an “insignificant film extra” for a few years, he says, and a highlight was playing the back of the head of Lovejoy’s Ian McShane!
“Obviously, the back of my head was as good looking as McShane’s but in my nervousness on set I fiddled with one of the crew’s cameras and was severely reprimanded!” he says.
Also the grub on set was always a highlight. “It’s usually of banquet size,” says Barry. That day, “being of the lower order and attending to film and TV etiquette, I placed myself with the other extras at the rear of the queue. There’s always plenty of food to go round.” Then, movement. “Mr Caine was ushered on to the station platform, and he stood there motionless – just waiting all on his lonesome. I was also led on to the platform and strategically placed about 20ft away from Mr Caine.
“He is a large, handsome man and a film icon. I felt very diminished standing there beside this giant of film! I obeyed protocol. I didn’t make eye contact and never attempted to speak to him as it is a big no-no for an extra when in a scene with a leading actor.”
Yet something passed between the two.
“Although a very silent encounter I felt we connected for the few minutes before the crew arrived,” he says. “Not many people know that!” Barry’s last adventure as an extra was for a theatre production of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. “I played a Jewish prisoner sent to his death in the gas chamber,” he says. “This production was over 10 years ago but that encounter with evil has stayed with me. What a terrible time in humankind’s history. It must never happen again.”
■ Tell us about your encounters with the stars at siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk