re: #50 wheat-dogghazi-mailgate

True fact: I worked as an extra in the Hannah Montana movie. Got paid $65 for two days of standing in 90-degree Tennessee heat waving a sign around and yelling “Miley! Miley!” or some such thing.

You won’t see me. Maybe you can see the sign I was holding, though.

This whole escapade was my ex’s idea. Our niece was once a Hannah Montana fan (but not at the time we went to TN for the shoot), so when my ex saw the ad for extras, she persuaded us to go. All three of us were supposed to be extras. But the heat got to niece and ex-wife, and only I followed through.

I never saw Miley or Billy Ray. While we peons were trying to avoid heat stroke, the stars were chilling in their air conditioned trailer while the director shot around their eventual appearances. We extras were told to look and cheer at big X’s made of gaffer’s tape.

What a funny coincidence: my brother William, who’s been trying to break into acting off-and-on for a few years now, was also an extra on the Hannah Montana movie on a couple of the location shoots around the greater Nashville area during filming (down in Columbia and also up in Ridgetop at Smiley Hollow), over about a week or so. He actually made some decent money, about a grand or so IIRC, but some long, shitty hours.

Every now and then, he still gets a Hannah Montana joke thrown at him at work ;-)