Netflix series looking for extras
Are you a “Mayberry” type? Would you feel comfortable being decked out in clothes that would make you look like a college student circa 1979?
Then the makers of the upcoming Netflix series “Mindhunter” want to get in touch with you.
The “Mindhunter” crew, which has been shooting at various locations in the Pittsburgh region for the last couple of months and was in Washington earlier this year, will be returning to the city Oct. 17-18. The plan is to shoot some scenes for the 10-episode series at Washington & Jefferson College, which will be playing the role of a college campus in Boston. The makers of the series need extras – plenty of them, according to Jennifer Nash, the background casting director for the series.
“We need 500 people a week,” she explained.
Along with “Mayberry” types – think of folks who wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Norman Rockwell illustration – the series needs people who might pass muster as detectives, FBI agents, police officers, waitresses, bartenders, Chinese restaurant patrons, maintenance men and airline personnel.
Being an extra will not get you an Oscar, and it won’t make you rich – background actors for “Mindhunter” are paid $64 for being available for eight hours, plus time and a half for any time over. If someone has a classic car from the 1950s to 1980s, they can lend to the “Mindhunter” makers, they will be paid $175 for the car to be parked on the street, plus an additional $64 if the owner drives the car in the shoot or is used in the background.
“If you’re interested in the film business at all, it’s pretty cool to be on a set that operates at this level of professionalism,” Nash said.
Tentatively set to bow on Netflix in the spring, “Mindhunter” is based on the book “Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit” by Mark Olshaker and John E. Douglas, and its executive producers are filmmaker David Fincher and actress Charlize Theron. For Fincher, it’s a return to familiar territory, since he directed the serial-killer movie “Seven,” as well as “Zodiac,” a 2007 film about the hunt for the Zodiac Killer who terrorized northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
A casting call is happening from noon to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Ridge at Robinson apartment complex at 1501 Meredith Drive in Pittsburgh. Anyone interested in being an extra can send their name, phone number and basic sizes to mhc.pittsburgh@gmail.com. Photos of vintage vehicles can be submitted at mindhuntervehicles@gmail.com.