AS AN EXTRA WHO KEPT SHOWING UP IN THE SHOT - "WHO'S THAT GUY? GET RID OF HIM!"
Decider's Will Harris asks Jim Belushi about an early film in his filmography: Brian De Palma's The Fury--
I like to ask actors about the earliest projects in their careers, but with your filmography, I can’t quite tell which came first: The Fury or Who’s Watching the Kids?The Fury?! [Explodes into laughter.] I can’t believe you pulled that out of your ass!
I do enjoy my research.
Well, The Fury… Basically, I was a pushy extra, and I got fired.
Oh, really? That I did not know.
Yeah, I was so young and naive. [Laughs.] We thought we were gonna be movie stars! The whole time we were there, we were, like, “Look, there’s a camera there!” And we’d walk in front of it. We were so bad! The assistant director told me, “I was at the dailies, and we looking at them, and there you were over and over and over again. Brian said, ‘Who’s that guy?! Get rid of him!” But ironically, he then came with Amy Irving to Second City and saw an improv show, and John Cassavetes came, too, and it was all okay…or at least it wasn’t too bad! But anyway, my first real film was Thief.
Which is not a bad way to officially start your film career.
No, Michael Mann was the coolest! By the way, as far as getting fired from The Fury, when I did the Letterman show, they got the film, and we counted how many times you could see me on camera. It was, like, four times within a minute clip! [Laughs.]
And the gag that we didn’t end up doing was that we were going to call Brian DePalma on the show, and I was going to apologize to him! Oh, boy, the pure nerve and bravado of the young actor…
Updated: Friday, June 21, 2019 12:10 AM CDT
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