Extra! Extra! Read all about it.

Okay, here goes. I was a roadie for Joaquin Phoenix's and Reese Witherspoon's 4:00 a.m. concert at the Memphis Mud Island Amphitheater yesterday morning. Sounds insane? I was a little bit. I was an extra for a concert scene in the upcoming movie "Walk The Line," about the life of Johnny Cash. Through a very random and lucky chain of events, I was one of a couple extras who were tapped to play roadies in a couple of scenes. First, we were in the background drinking beers at a backstage party after the concert. Apparently, we were very much in the shot at one point. Very exciting! This, we thought, was more than we could have hoped for. After we filmed that scene, we broke for lunch. This is one of the funny memories of the night. We broke for lunch. It was 1:30 a.m.

After this "lunch," we went back to the amphitheater, which stars as the Hollywood Bowl (or, as I understand it will be called in the movie, the Pacific Bowl). There, they called the roadies back. We were just standing there when a member of the crew began giving us assignments. It was nothing to him, just you go here and you go there. To us, though, it was huge! He points at me and says, "We'll have you come out here and get the autoharp from June after her song." He then moves on the other guys as I am realizing that he means I will walk out on stage during the concert and take a musical instrument from Reese Witherspoon. In the scene Reese's character (I call her Reese now. Not because we bonded so over the autoharp, but because it's easier to type than Witherspoon.) sings a song, then introduces Johnny Cash. As he's walking out, she gets up, walks a few steps (probably out of the picture, damn it!), hands me the autoharp and her finger picks, and says, "Thank you." We did this many, many times - over and over again. Between 3 and 6 a.m. when we should all have been sleeping. Repetitive and late at night? Needless to say, it was awesome!

I did catch myself smiling sweetly and responding in a very un-roadie-like manner as she handed me the instrument and thanked me. I had to get back into character. It was tough.

Between takes, she and Joaquin would joke around and the director occasionally gave some notes while the crew set everything back up, and I would stand there - feeling like the most important extra in the history of filmmaking - holding the harp and picks and waiting for Reese to be ready for them just before the shot would start again. Not really my job, as she once gratefully acknowledged, but I wasn't about to volunteer to not be in the middle of the action next to the stars!

Okay, more on this very interesting and comical experience later. The movie making process is unbelievably fascinating!