We've all seen their faces, but we rarely know their names. He was the dad in that one movie, he was a lawyer on a few episodes of that TV show, he was the bad guy one time, the good guy in another. He's a strange sort of famous, well-known enough that you'd recognize him at the supermarket, but obscure enough that you might just think you met him at a party once. He's that guy who was in that thing.

This documentary takes sixteen character actors and finds out what it's like to be famous-ish. The stories have a similar skeleton, but the fleshing out is what makes each one interesting. The main connection is obviously that each has achieved a certain level of success in acting, but haven't been able to make the leap to A-list celebrity status.

A majority of the actors seemed content with where they were. Honestly, I'm sort of split on that attitude. Part of me wants to tell them to keep striving, keep going for the leading roles, take the next step; the other part of me says they should embrace what they have, since 95% of actors don't even get to that level of stardom, let alone reach the upper echelons of fame.

I was also fascinated with an aspect that, in hindsight, I should have already realized. Many of these guys, despite being in numerous successful movies or TV shows, don't have the amount of money you associate with actors. If you have a supporting role on a TV show, you're only getting paid for the episodes you're in. If your character dies or gets dumped or is just written out, there goes your paycheck; with this sort of acting, you don't know when the next gig will come. That also plays into why you recognize them from so many projects. George Clooney can get $20 million for one movie, so he doesn't need to worry about quantity. These guys might make a few hundred thousand (which is still a silly number to us mortals) but it forces them to sign on wherever they can.

If you ever had dreams of becoming an actor, or any kind of celebrity, this is a great watch. You can even draw an immediate correlation to musicians - think of how many bands are started by high schoolers, then how many actually get any level of local recognition, then how many get signed to an indie label, then how many can get noticed on a national level, then how many get signed to a major label, then how many can sell out an arena, then how many can make a living off of it. Acting is the same way, high school drama students move on to indie movies, find an agent, and just strive to make it to the top. The actors in this movie are the opening acts to the world's biggest stars.

(Oddly, there is no official trailer for this movie, so here's a clip)

 

On the [Celluloid Hero] scale, "That Guy Who Was In That Thing" gets a 6 out of 10.

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