GA Voice

A Look Behind the Lens

LGBTQ Actors Share Their Experience­s as Extras, Leads in Georgia-based Production­s

- Dallas Anne Duncan

Georgia’s most well-known crops are collective­ly referred to as “the five Ps:” peaches, pecans, pine, peanuts, and poultry. It might be time to add a sixth “P” for production; film, TV and commercial production, specifical­ly, as the state’s industry is blossoming.

“Our industry took off during the recession,” said Craig Dominey, camera-ready program manager for the Georgia Film Office. “A lot of people who were out of work at the time crossed over into the film industry and have been there since.”

The influx of production crews, creative teams, celebritie­s, actors and everyone else associated with a shoot means more business in local businesses. Caterers are sought out to bring food to set, dry cleaners are required for frequent costume changes and laundry services. The Georgia Film Office has a Georgia Production Registry where interested parties can list their business, support service or interest in being on a crew, which is then shared with production companies.

Atlanta and Savannah are the cities with the most film appearance­s, and Columbus and Augusta are becoming more popular as well. But it’s not just the metropolis­es creative teams seek.

“It’s fun to see these smaller communitie­s in Georgia that don’t see much production suddenly get one of those,” Dominey said.

A field out in Chattahooc­hee Hills was home to the Wakanda scenes in “Black Panther,” and “The Marks,” a ’90s-style coming-ofage comedy, was recently filmed in smaller towns around Atlanta, including Villa Rica.

“They were excited to host us, these small towns, and some of them have these thriving backyard wrestling communitie­s,” Atlantabas­ed actress Laurie Winkel, who identifies as bisexual, told Georgia Voice. “Some of the small towns were welcoming and people came out for free to be extras.”

Location, location, location

Each of Georgia’s 159 counties has a film liaison, and Dominey oversees that network. “We’re sort of the starting point for a lot of the production­s that are looking to shoot here,” Dominey said. “We do take trips out to [Los Angeles] and let people know about us and connect with folks who are thinking of shooting here or have shot here.”

Most of the time, the conversati­ons begin with a phone call or an email from a production company that’s looking to film in Georgia.

“They may be looking just for Georgia, or various states or various countries, depending on what the script calls for,” Dominey said. “With locations, we try to find areas of the state that would work location-wise for what the story calls for in the TV series or film.” The Film Office oversees a publicly accessible photo database in which county film liaisons and citizens can upload and share potential locations for filming. Dominey said sometimes the production companies have been through this database and found places, but many times the Film Office puts together a photo package to submit after the initial phone call.

“If it’s a story that is calling for a main location, a swamp, a small town, a farm, we’ll find locations in this database and group them into those categories. So when they open it on their end, they can say, ‘OK, here’s the scene that takes place in the swamp and here’s some locations in Georgia that might work for that,’” Dominey said. “A lot of times they’ll decide to come here with a creative team … we’ll go around and visit some places. Hopefully based on a trip like that they decide we have the total package creatively, and the incentives and the other amenities, and they decide to shoot the project here.”

That’s precisely what happened to Atlanta resident Martha Barnes, whose late motherin-law’s house was scouted in Conyers for use in “Just Mercy,” a movie about Alabama lawyer Bryan Stevenson, who defends wrongly accused inmates and those who can’t afford legal representa­tion. Stevenson is portrayed by actor Michael B. Jordan, and Barnes’ residence was his home in the film.

“This gentleman called us; he was a scout who looks for places for the movie industry and wanted to come out and look at it,” Barnes said. “He came out and then came back a second time and brought people who were a little more influentia­l in the film.”

She said they spent more time measuring the entirety of the home than they did filming inside of it – the camera crew was there for only a day – and used much of what was in the home as its furnishing­s in the movie.

“We’re very interested to see how [the movie] comes out,” she said. “It’s a beautiful house.” Hayley Lathem and her fiancée Elisa Atkins, both Augusta residents who identify as pansexual, got to work on-location and on an indoor set as extras in the DC-inspired series “Doom Patrol.”

“It’s surprising they did so much to change the city street. It was more just structure that was there and everything else was so different than what it looks like in normal life,” Lathem said. “The staging and the set inside was so cool because you would walk from one set to another and see the inside of whole houses in the building, and you come out of that set and you realize you’re in a warehouse. Think of two or three Wal-Marts built together with nothing in it, and that’s how huge it is.”

Extra, extra!

One of Atkins’ friends worked on the Netflix series “Stranger Things” and got a casting email asking for same-sex couples, which she forwarded to Atkins and Lathem.

“When we applied, they were looking for same-sex couples and drag kings and queens, and I’m also a drag king,” Lathem told Georgia Voice.

And for what it’s like to get to be a real-life same-sex couple playing a fictional samesex couple?

“We just got to hold hands the whole time,” Atkins said. They also got to kiss on-screen.

“It was kind of cool to know that I didn’t have to change myself or who I am to fit ‘society standards,’ and that I could just be myself,” Lathem said, adding that she also got to help teach the series’ makeup team how to transform someone into a drag king. “The makeup artists that were doing this and setting it up and giving us all of our makeup did not understand the difference versus drag kings and drag queens. I got to show them pictures of what I looked like as a drag king in the real world versus them trying to put makeup on me to make me look like a drag king.”

She and Atkins agree that meeting other extras and those with larger roles is their favorite part of being in the industry.

“A lot of people do this for a living, especially in Atlanta, because the Atlanta film industry is so huge. Just meeting how down-to-Earth these people are, even the cast and crew, the celebritie­s,” Lathem said. “It’s so cool to know like, I’m sitting next to Brendan Fraser in several scenes or Matt Bomer.”

Winkel is one of those who act full-time. She’s been in several true crime shows “getting murdered left and right,” but has had several co-star appearance­s, which have 10 to 12 lines, and even the leading role in “The Marks,” where she gets to be a wrestler.

“I think every actor wants an experience where they have to learn a whole new skill,” Winkel said. “Indie films sometimes you get to stretch your talents and like, be a wrestler. They can sometimes be more adventurou­s.”

Her true crime roles could also be described as adventurou­s: “I’m like the red herring; the younger woman who was having an affair with the guy who died and maybe I did it. I did wear some ridiculous ’80s lingerie and lounged around in silky red pajamas,” Winkel said.

One of her most unusual projects was a show called “Snapped: Notorious,” which was a mini-series about the BTK Killer.

“They had to tie me up in like, scantily clad underwear and I was hog-tied. There’s a very capable stunt coordinato­r on set, but it was a very vulnerable position to be in. We had several positions where I was being choked or thrown or being thrown to the ground, and at one point there was a bag being put over my head,” she said.

Winkel’s also been cast in the show “Dark Waters,” which required traveling to Miami, Florida, and filming multiple death scenes on a crowded boat in freezing-cold water.

To read more about Georgia’s LGBTQ film industry, visit our website at thegavoice.com.

 ?? COURTESY PHOTO ?? ATLANTA-BASED ACTRESS LAURIE WINKEL (R)
COURTESY PHOTO ATLANTA-BASED ACTRESS LAURIE WINKEL (R)
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