Actors of Reddit, what are the conversations like when you’re talking in the background of a scene but can’t be heard?

1. You generally mouth the words only as they don't want you picked up on the mic from the actual dialogue going on. If you watch background actors you see them nod a lot at each other and agreeing.. rarely anyone looks like they are having a real heart to heart talk.
   — Telnets


2. I'm a pianist for musical theatre, not an actor, but... In the show "Breaking Up is Hard to Do", there's a scene where an actor is talking directly to the audience and then the scene "flips" to other characters talking "backstage". As the scene flips, the actor's mic fades out, he turns around to face directly at me, and continues to improvise a monologue for about a half minute or so. Every night, it got more and more ridiculous... One night, it was just a stream of never-ending profanity. Thankfully, he chose not to go with that on any actual performances; our sound crew isn't always on top of things and that would not have gone over well.
   — PrestoCadenza


3. This makes we want to do an /r/writingprompts where two movie extras keep meeting and having fake conversations and fall in love only to find out that they aren't anything like their fake extra selves.
   — RamenJunkie






4. Most of the time you just move your lips, pantomiming. What “sells” the background acting are the gestures, usually small, that make it seem like you and the person you’re paired up with are friends and having a good time in the scene you are in. A lot of the time you are listening to the principal actors’ dialogue because you may have a cue to exit, cross, or enter on. And those actors whisper/talk because they are microphoned, so it’s hard to hear them. You have to pay attention to them and where the cameras are. The top two shows, filmed in LA, that are challenging for background actors to work on are 1. Westworld and 2. Code Black. Watch these shows and pay close attention to the background actors in these. They are working their butts off, generally 10 to 14 hours a day.
   — jhutch524


5. I actually did background for a year or so when I first moved to LA. The conversations run a gamut. Much of the time you don't actually say anything; you're just mouthing words. Other times you'll just say inane things like "watermelon" over and over. Rare, but it does happen. But a lot of the time you're just talking to the other background. It doesn't matter what you're saying (as long as you keep your voices low and don't break character visually), so you're just chatting. Granted, most of these people are one-day friends from diverse, artistic backgrounds, so often your topics will get really weird, really fast. The fact itself that you're on set leads to much of the conversational hilarity. For example, one time I was working on a big crime procedural show and we were doing a rain scene outside of a murder victim's house. So me and two other background actors are huddled off to one side of the set under these big rain machines suspended from cranes. Right before they would call action, rain on, then cut, rain off. All we have to do is stay under our umbrella and look gossipy, and we're golden. But of course we're chatting, and to hear each other over the water we had to project a little, even standing two feet away from each other. And we're having a conversation about one of the lead actors on the show, a very famous, masculine action star, and making very racy, sexual puns about him. Because, you know, it was 3 in the morning and we're standing out in the fake rain and we were a little punch-drunk. And this is what you talk about with new actor friends. They called cut on the latest take, and immediately the Assistant Director calls over his bullhorn: "Background, be quiet." We didn't think anything of it, they'd been saying that for a few takes no matter how low we tried to get our voices. But then he added: "The mics are pointing right at you." We shut up immediately. If one of the parabolic mics was indeed pointed in our direction, then a lot of the crew could hear all the butthole zingers we'd been coming up with about their star. Whoopsie.
   — HawkeyeJones


6. We had to film an About Us video for my business. The guy shooting the video wanted to do some filler shots so he told me to just say “peas and carrots” and move my hands like I was talking. The entire shot looked like I was thinking because my eyes were looking upward and like Ricky Bobby, I didn’t know what to do with my hands.
   — GingerBeard73






7. I did a promo as a background actor for the mother of a girl I liked who was directing. I didn't know that I was supposed to be miming talking, not making any actual sounds. Every time she stopped and said how she could still hear me through the sensitive mics I would just talk lower but it wasn't working. I still feel bad about that.
   — questionguess


8. I watched a HIMYM and noticed one of the extras at McLaren's... I read her lips. (She was hot. Sue me.) "So you're a background artist. A background artist. You're in the background."
   — boymadefrompaint


9. Did background as a job for a year. Sometimes we were hungry and talked about food, or sometimes we had whole fake lives. Once me and guy caught up and talked about our divorces. Another time I make up stories "Is your sister still on meth?!!?" when they couldnt hear me lol. On riverdale me and group of friends talked about sex the whole time because it was 16 hour day and we were bored.
   — collarsncats