Sydney, Australia

So, there’s this roller disco in the heart of the city. Disco balls and snazzy lighting, cool cats on skates, this place rocks. Then this guy comes onto the rink, grooving with the chicks and he’s wearing this white felt hat with aviators and a boa with these snazzy white flairs over his skates. He’s swinging round the rink following the spotlights and just being cool.

That look is going to come back and haunt me one day if I try to run for president, but at least I had fun. Simon had managed to get me involved in a rock video for a band he knows but I was not expecting that I would be grooving on roller skates. We arrived at the dilapidated skate rink and I suddenly felt like I had walked through time. Dust swamped the floor, mold was in the process of climbing the walls and there were piles of forgotten roller skates looking like something out of Mad Max. In amongst it all stood small knots of people trying to tame this harsh environment and set up equipment. Cables, leads, adapters, lights and miscellaneous boxes cluttered the floor and I was instantly put to work shifting boxes and gargantuan lights up flights of endless stairs. That morning was chaos. I have found that no one really knows the full extent of what’s going on in a film set. I was asked to do ten things at once and sometimes had conflicting orders. It was a pleasure however, to see the lights get turned on and illuminate the disco balls I had cleaned so carefully, scrubbing them tile by tile. I find it funny that just two months ago I would not have been able to help as well as I did, carrying lifting and plugging in.

The second half of the day was surreal. I was shown into a big space filled with extras and costumes, dancers, drag queens, flares and hot pants. I was given a lot of clothes and kept being told to change. The blue flares with white fur were my favorite, closely followed my boa. After that I had just one little skill to master in an hour: Roller-skating. To my credit I didn’t fall and I looked quite funky as I windmilled my arms and shot along the floor. I had a great day as an extra but I did feel sorry for those I left managing the lights. I didn’t realize this when I acted in the TV ad but there is a great difference in the amount of work done between cast and crew. The crew slave away carrying things and always working while the cast spend most of the time sitting around waiting for their call, looking bored. The extras are not allowed anywhere near the tech equipment but I still felt they should lend a hand. In reality the extras were doing as much as they could but when I was with them I felt guilty for not doing as much as the crew. I do not think the thought would have crossed my mind if I had been just been an actor.

The band ROCKED! Three vocalists, a guitar and bass, three drum kits, and two trumpets and a collection of classic keyboards jammed it out on the floor of the rink as we circled on our skates. The tune was funky, the atmosphere was lively and the clothes were pure cheesy - or was it retro, I can never tell.