starwars.com Homing Beacon #95

AmShak

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"It’s never good to fall asleep at work," advises Episode III extra Paul Nicholson. "I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but it’s hard not to when most of the air you’re breathing is the same air that’s just been expelled from your own lungs, you can barely hear nor see and you’re not allowed to move cause you’re dead."
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Nicholson counts himself lucky to have landed a behind-the-mask part in Episode III as Senator Po Nudo. On the off chance you are a fan of the Aqualish representative from Ando, you may be sad to hear that Po Nudo does not survive to the end of the new movie. In fact, the greatest extra acting challenge for Nicholson was the fact that Nodu’s dead body serves as set dressing for a scene that took the "living" actors over ten hours to shoot.
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"I could move my head inside my mask a bit," Nicholson recalls, "and I eventually found a way to watch the other actors while remaining dead. I only had a 1 mm diameter drill hole to look out of, so I really couldn’t see much -- especially considering my four eyes had been layered in KY jelly to make them shinier. And I really needed to pee."
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He downplays any physical challenges, as Nicholson is an enthusiastic Star Wars fan who moved to Sydney three years ago "just to be in Star Wars", he claims. "It paid off. I would have paid to be in that movie."
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By day, Nicholson works as a valet at a hot Sydney restaurant where he had spotted Star Wars celebrities including Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor, but getting to see them in action on-set was naturally a thrilling experience.
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"Hayden swings that metal baton around really, really well," Nicholson is pleased to report. "Ewan McGregor is a hardcore saberman as well. They exhausted themselves to make their scenes look great." Along with the chance to witness some Episode III history-in-the-making, and gather some autographs from cast and crew in his copy of the Attack of the Clones Visual Dictionary, Nicholson will carry away one other treasured memory. "Ewan sang ‘I am the Walrus’ with me at one stage, because I kind of looked like one."
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While the Star Wars extra experience was particularly unique, Nicholson endorses the entire craft of being a movie extra. "Join an extras agency," he advises. "Look one up in your local directory. There are always television commercials and shows being made everywhere. You can do it at any age. It’s a fun way to meet people and the food is always good."
 
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