Powerful Louisiana legislators are determined to phase out the state’s film tax-credit program, and folks whose livelihoods depend on the industry are making their angry voices heard.
An often overlooked but increasingly vocal segment of the Hollywood South workforce is the background actors, or extras, who fear losing their bread and butter.
Neutral Ground News Hollywood South correspondent Don Keydick recently spoke to one of these apprehensive “actors,” Shaq Walker, who says “working” under the bright lights has made his dreams come true.
“Far back as I can remember, I been told I’d never amount to nuttin, but I did amount to nuttin in Hollywood South!,” the 40-year-old former prisoner told me in his shabby, but dilapidated mobile-home, which he shares with three other extras, their families and their pets.
“I done been in mo’ then 80 shows, and in ‘Twelve Years a Slave,’ you can see part o’ my face, but it’s kinda blurry. And ‘NCIS: New Orleans’ even hired my old hound, Dorothy Mae, and they treated her better than me! And now, the dumbass bastards in Baton Rouge wanna flush us down the terlet. Dumbass bastards!”