The Avengers

INDEPENDENCE, Ohio - The line to get into “The Avengers” extras casting call looked like something out of a movie.

Close to a half-mile long, the line stretched out of the Holiday Inn on Rockside Road in Independence around the parking lot and into and around a neighboring field.

“This is impossible, this is ridiculous, why am I here?” asked Joe Cooney of Richmond Heights, who joined the rear of the lengthy line not long after the casting call started at noon.

Still, he was going to stick it out.

“Today, I have nothing on the schedule so I can wait until four, I’m just afraid at four o’clock they’ll say come back tomorrow,” said Cooney, who was showing up for his very first casting call.

Jeleesa Bailey was already in and out.

“We got here at 9 o’clock and we’re looking at all the people that had to stand all the way in the back and we’re like we are in the front, yes!” she said.

Once people in line made their way to the front, they were ushered into a room where about 30 extras at a time were given a brief rundown of what would be expected of them as an extra on the film. It’s set to start shooting in Cleveland on August 5 and continue through August 30.

“The time you spent out there in line standing around maybe doing nothing is very similar to a day on a movie set,” said extras casting coordinator Maryellen Aviano. “Especially with the big action adventure movies there’s a lot of preparation time, long safety factors, a lot of the whole getting ready to do the next shot.”

If extras are called back to work, they will make $80 for an eight-hour day and get overtime after that. “We usually shoot 10 to 14 hour days on the downtown Cleveland streets in the middle of August,” she told the applicants.

Once given their paperwork, the aspiring extras posed for pictures and set off to wait for a call.

“They told you that they would call you by next week because they start filming August 5th so right really soon,” said Bethany Johnson of Solon.

A second casting call is scheduled for Saturday morning from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the same place. You should wear business attire and you must be 18 years or older though parents can submit current photos of their children.

“We do have scenes with kids,” said Aviano, “but I did not ask for them to come to the casting call because I don’t want to put any little ones through a long day. We adults, we can handle it because we want to be in the movie but the kids it’s not fair to them. It’s a hard enough day if they’re cast on the set.”