“Big Willy!”

“Big Willy!”

He chanted it like he’s done so many times before, only this time it was to me and one hundred other extras in his latest movie. Trying to excite us in the freezing cold at midnight, Will Smith started chanting with a set microphone.

Tonight I snuck onto the set of Will Smith’s latest movie, a film about the end of the world and the man who could potentially be the last person living (of course Will Smith).

I played a part in a crowd of people trying to get onto a boat leaving Manhattan. The area was fenced in and the extras were all carrying baggage. This was their last chance to live.

It was hard for me to feel that level of desperation. I myself just got out of a fancy Mexican restaurant. For heaven’s sake, the movie staff roamed the area offering hot sandwiches to anyone cold in the crowd. It may have been freezing, but I’d much rather go inside a warm bar than get on a ship heading into the windier waters.

Of course, the boat wasn’t actually there, but that would surely later be CGI’d.

Talking to the extras, I pretended to be one of them. “Can you believe how late I got onto the set,” I asked a shivering woman. To another, “I’m so happy they didn’t make us wear summer clothes and pretend it was warmer.” The common talk came easy. The extras seemed relaxed by it. Surely I could be one of them.

But the cold air seemed to relax our bones a little too much, and the calm air of winter put our skin to sleep. When the producer tried to get us to start moving, we stood motionless. We were too cold! And that’s when Will Smith took the mic and did his effortless crowd wooing. Then, without any backing music tracks, the man formerly known as The Fresh Prince rapped “Summer Time.” The entire set started dancing to his 90’s classic, showing the movie star hadn’t lost his musical grace. When he put his mic down and got ready to act, a fake police officer holding a fake machine gun, who was only minutes ago dancing, said, “Wow, for a minute, I felt as hot as summer.”