I played a detective in The Glory Boys - a Rod Steiger made for TV sort of thing.. Steiger was a professor, he had been delivering a speech on the environment that could save humanity, and somebody shot him. Steiger had been shot and was staggering down the front of a building and I had to look like a security heavy. It was in Leeds two weeks before Christmas. Everybody was freezing their knackers off apart from Steiger who was in his caravan as much as possible. I brought my gloves I was so cold.

they handed me a revolver, and Steiger wisely noted, you can't wear your gloves now. I remember I was working with another extra who was the one who came into a room, switched the light on and smiled - because it was Dulux paint. There were two other nutters both ex army, one who reckoned he was ex SAS, another who wanted to deck him cos he thought he was bullshitting.

Anyway a man with a clipboard came up and said - okay we've got the fire engines ready to make it look as if its raining. but we won't switch the water on til we shoot it, we'll just walk through our positions.
Steiger said, you walk through the positions. I'm just walking down the stair, I will hold the spectacles like this, so get the shot, and when you're ready to shoot, come and get me.....

Silence, then okay okay we go for the shot....

After that film I always took reports of Joanna Lumley's great intellectual powers with a pinch of salt. She had to run down the steps and shout Its a grey cortina! pointing after the escaping villains. Like I say there were fire hoses going and it was freezing, she runs the steps and shouts its a red cortina!
Then she did it again.
and again. got the colour wrong three times.

Anthony Perkin of Psycho fame was there . My chief memory of him was that he was very short sighted, almost to the poiint of bumping into things.

However I didn't do much of this sort of stuff, Bernard Wrigley would be the man to ask, and Jack Hudson of course.