Kathy Schad (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)

Over the last four years, Kathy Schad has appeared in movies that were responsible for the entertainment of tens of millions of viewers and hundreds of millions of dollars in earnings. She has been on location with stars as famous as Ricky Gervais and Mel Gibson. Unless you have a keen eye, though, it is unlikely that you would ever have noticed the Poor Farm Road resident on screen. Schad is part of the film and television industries’ unsung class of heroes; she is an extra, one of legion nonspeaking background actors who bring life to movies, TV shows, and commercials. While the days can be quite long and the pay low, for her, they are great fun.

Schad stumbled into film extra work almost accidentally. Wanting to work on her public speaking skills, she signed herself up for a class on commercial acting with Boston Casting, which offers services ranging from acting classes to headshot clinics to, appropriately, casting for aspiring actors. Following the course, she learned that the agency keeps a directory of people interested in working as background actors in the Greater Boston area. Calls for extras are made by e-mail. Thinking that it might lead to an exciting experience or two, Schad added her information to Boston Casting’s list.

This led to her first work as an extra, appearing as a part of the crowd in Foxboro’s Gillette Stadium in the middling Disney comedy Game Plan. It was then that she caught the bug, leading her to appear—or at least be filmed, as extras never know if they will be visible in the final cut of a film—in The Women, The Invention of Lying, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, and the upcoming Mel Gibson thriller The Edge of Darkness. This last title required more than standing around; for an hour, she drove her car back and forth over a short length of road. “I like to tell my friends that I did some stunt driving,” she said, laughing.

To Schad, this is not so much work, as play. “I just love being on the set. I’m not looking to make a career out of this or in acting. I just do it for fun,” she said, adding that the “subculture of extras,” as well as members of the film crew, provides great conversations and interesting stories. This is fortunate—interacting with big name talent is verboten; trying to fetch an autograph from a celebrity on set, for example, would hastily get an extra fired. Even from a bit of a distance, though, seeing stars in person can be exhilarating. While filming The Invention of Lying, Schad recalled that watching Ricky Gervais was “hilarious, like being at a comedy club.”

Luckily for extra-hobbyists like Schad, and budding actors, too, the commonwealth’s efforts to bring filmmaking to Massachusetts have led to plenty of opportunities to be on set. How would she recommend that people interested in background work get started? “Take classes! Boston Casting has some great ones. Make connections, network, and get on a [casting list].” After that, it is only a matter of waiting for a call time that might lead to action, excitement, and even a little “stunt” work.