I was an extra in John Carpenter’s Christine movie
A promotional poster for John Carpenter’s movie Christine. I received USD150 for being an extra, which was a lot of money at the time.
Back when I was a teen in Los Angeles, I got connected to a friend who used to run around Hollywood doing extra parts, trying to be an actor. We’d become friends and we talked, and he said to me that there’s a new movie coming up by John Carpenter called Christine. It’s about some kind of demon car and it’s going in for production and they needed extras and would I be interested? I said, “Sure.” So I took off from work that day for the part and my flatmate / roommate at the time drove me to the set.
It was at a stadium and we were to sit on the bleachers. They had all the cameras and the car, everything, set up in the stadium and they had tracks and all that. You know, where they have a car and they have tracks, and they had the camera rolling on the tracks, going back and forth? So what happens is, when the car was doing something and then the characters are going in and out, they would signal us and all of us in the bleachers would wave flags and go, “Yay.”
I was an extra in this scene
We did that the whole day and it was wonderful because it was like 150 dollars for the day. At that time, that was a lot of money and we got a free lunch because it went over schedule. We got a free lunch, we got 150 bucks and I was in the bleachers for the movie Christine by John Carpenter.
While I was in the bleachers, there was a guy next to me and his name was either Scott, David or Billy Crystal. But for convenience sake, we’ll just call him Billy as it’s been 36 years already. I suspected his surname wasn’t real but anyways, Billy Crystal, he was real friendly, he was real nice. He was in his mid-20s, older than me and he was married to a lady in her 40s who produced all the original Planet of the Apes. I was like, “Oh wow” because the Planet of the Apes were some of my favourite movies.
We started going out together, me and this new friend. We’d go and play pool sometimes or we’d go see a movie, just buddies, just friends. When he got to know me better, he invited me to his house. He lived in Beverly Hills with his wife so I asked him, “Would she mind if I came over?” He said, “No, as long as you’re my friend, it’s fine.”
So I went over with him, and he drove a van to this big house in Beverly Hills. When we walked in – it was a huge house – there was a middle-aged lady there, quite pleasant. It was his wife and so Billy introduced me to his wife. We exchanged a few pleasantries, had a drink and then he took me to the backyard.
A still from Planet of the Apes. My friend Billy’s wife worked as a producer, or one of the producers, on this movie and they had all the props in their backyard at home.
What was incredible was in their backyard – they had a big yard – they had all the props from Planet of the Apes. In Planet of the Apes, they had one ape that was real tall and big, like two storeys, and he was supposed to be the law-giver. They had a couple of other ape props and ape statue props. She had all the props from the movie there so I went to her backyard and looked at all of them. Too bad I didn’t take any pictures of me and the props…
After looking at that, we went inside and I sat down and had a light dinner with them. Billy’s wife was very, very nice and we were talking. She told me she had done a few movies, produced movies, but her favourite actor at that time was David Soul. I remember David Soul was in a vampire movie, which I saw him in. I forgot the name of the movie… He was in a movie called Salem’s Lot and I’d watched that so I remembered David Soul from Salem’s Lot. Anyway, she told me that he was her favourite actor. We exchanged some nice niceties and then me and Billy, we took off and went to ride around West Hollywood.
He liked to ride around in his van in West Hollywood and sometimes he would do narcotics, which I was not into. Anyway, before he dropped me off that day, he said to me, “Hey, I know you do a lot of meditation. I know you do chanting and meditation, and I’m going to give you something that really enhances your meditation, that’s going to make you go on a really, really powerful meditation trip.”
This photograph was taken outside Fenmore Apartments. I was 16 years old at the time.
He parked in front of my apartment, Fenmore Apartments on Sunset Boulevard where I lived for a short while. After he parked his van, he passed me a white piece of paper. It was a small piece of paper, 1 inch by 1 inch square with a blue-purple dot on it. He said when I did my meditations that night, to put that piece of paper under my tongue and close my mouth, and let it dissolve and then meditate.
I said to Billy, “I don’t need that, I have good meditations without anything” and I asked, “What is that, is that ink?” He said, “No, it’s not ink, it’s really cool” but he wouldn’t tell me what it was and I don’t know what it was. So I said, “Okay, bye Billy. You know, I’ll see you another day. We’ll hang out together” and I went to my apartment.
I kept the paper on the side and I did my prayers, meditations and sadhana. Later, another one of my friends from upstairs in the building came down and his name was David. I showed David that piece of paper and he said to me, “Oh, that’s acid.” I asked, “What’s acid?” and he said, “Acid is a type of drug that you put under your tongue and it dissolves into your bloodstream and you go on a really psychedelic trip.”
He said, “If you’re in a good mood, you go on a good trip but if you’re in a bad mood, you’ll go on a really bad trip” and the trip can last three to six hours, depending on how strong the dosage is. It could be all night, it could be days. I was not really happy with Billy because he was trying to get me to do acid without me knowing. I don’t think he had any bad intent but back then, that’s what people were doing in the 80s. As for myself, I didn’t do it.
Nevertheless, it was kind of interesting. These are some of the interesting friends that I’d met. Billy was a nice guy and it was fun doing the Christine extra for John Carpenter’s film. I got good pay and also I got to see the props from Planet of the Apes, to meet his wife who was a producer, or one of the producers, she was somehow involved with that movie.
This is just an interesting recollection I had of when I was in Los Angeles.
Tsem Rinpoche
I was an extra in Christine
Or view the video on the server at:
https://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/JohnCarpenterChristine.mp4
For more interesting information:
- How Geshe Tsultrim Gyeltsen changed my life
- This Is Me in Hollywood in the 80s
- I met Kyabje Zong Rinpoche at 18 | 我在18岁那年遇见嘉杰宋仁波切 | ངས་༧སྐྱབས་རྗེ་ཟོང་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་མཆོག་ང་རང་ལོ་བཅོ་བརྒྱད་ཡོད་སྐབས་མཇལ་བ་རེད།
- I was accepted by Barbizon Modelling School
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- Top 10 Celebrity Buddhists
- Celebrity Buddhists
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This short story, kind of shows us what type of moral compass Ripoche had, and that he didn’t want o go on the trips for the sake of it. He prefer to do meditations based on instructions given to him and from his teacher.
Its kind of sad that young people in urban areas are always exposed to drugs and hallucinogens of all types. This phenomenon, is so widespread all over the developed world, and come to think about it Billy is not a very good role model for Rinpoche.
This paints very realistic picture – drugs are taken so recreationally :/ sad, but true.
..very glad rinpoche was safe. Don’t think billy was bad, but still found it super disturbing that he would give something like that to anyone – especially a minor without even telling them what it was.
This recollection by Rinpoche even though is short but interesting, it gives a glimpse of the life of the life of 80s, it may be the similar as well for these days’ people. People still go party, have fun and some do drugs by thinking this can enhance their experinece ignorantly.
Rinpoche even when he was young and hanging out with many people he met, but he never get influence to do negative things that harm himself or others like taking drugs. Instead many he hangs out with actually positively influenced by him like to learn some dharma. Rinpoche was in dharma at that time when he was doing extra and dharma is in him, hence he never do drugs, drinking or anything harmful.
This also shows how importance of dharma in one’s life, especially to teach to our kids so they can differentiate between good and bad, even when parents/teachers are not around them. Only dharma is something our kids can bring everywhere they go, where parents cannot 24/7 or forever with their kids. It’s importance to have dharma planted and grew in kids and our mind, so we do things that benefit ourselves and others.
Rinpoche had been through a lot in America, the happy moments, the unhappy moments and even the suffering moments, and being an extra in the Christine movie is definitely one of the pleasure moment.
I also think that Billy is not a bad person even he gave Rinpoche drugs, probably because he thought it was something good as he has been consuming it so he would like to share with Rinpoche what he likes, this is also something many people would do when they go drinking party, because it make them high.
to me, this shows how important is Dharma, before I came into Dharma, I also thought going parties, going drinking, going clubbing is what life is for, and we enjoy doing it again and again because thats what everyone is doing, so we felt ‘belong’ to the groups, when everyone is doing it, we thought thats the right way to live. But after learning Dharma, then I realized it is not the case, as life is very short and it is impermanent, when we waste all our time for parties, we lose the chance to collect merits and this resulted that why so many people suffer so much when they pass away. Im glad that I have met the Dharma and really grateful to Rinpoche who has brought Dharma into my life, if not, I think today Im still going clubbing and making ‘friends’ there.
Interesting to hear from the short video and reading this post of Rinpoche recollections. When Rinpoche was in Los Angeles, those days been working as an extra in John Carpenter’s Christine movie were some sort of adventurous. Meeting a funny friend Billy who takes dangerous stuffs of acid. And getting to know Billy’s wife who had done a few movies, produced movies, such as Planet of the Apes and so forth.
Thank you Rinpoche for this interesting sharing
Rinpoche sure lived an interesting life in L.A and with his determination, Rinpoche could have been successful as an actor in Hollywood. However, no matter what, Rinpoche always kept his life clean and never ever slack on his spiritual commitments. Most importantly, Rinpoche showed us the preciousness of the Dharma and benefitting others when he willingly gave up all this potential stardom by committing to his Guru, Kyabje Zong Rinpoche to be a Sangha. Throughout every stage of Rinpoche’s life is a Dharma lesson to us and an examplary role model for us to emulate.
It is very blessed to read about Rinpoche’s youth and the adventures following being an extra at the set of John Carpenter’s Christine movie. The world is a dangerous place, people will try to get others to their level (i.e. take acid in the case of Billy) even though in their mind it is just fun without real malice intention. Thank you Rinpoche for this eye-opening sharing.
It’s really nice and interesting to hear Rinpoche sharing about old times and was extra in a movie.?I used to watch tv series like Planet of the Apes cos I find it interesting that apes can talk. ??..and other detective series like Starsky and Hutch with David Soul as co -actor. Thank you very much Rinpoche for sharing these light and entertaining stories . Looking forward for more of these short sharing from Rinpoche again soon ????