The life of an extra can sometimes feel like a bad dream. Michael Barnard spent the entire second season of HBO’s Westworld as a robot host stuck in cold storage, and still vividly recalls the moment Anthony Hopkins bid farewell to the set. “He was so sweet and nice, but there were 40 of us completely butt-naked,” he remembers. “Isn’t that your high-school worst nightmare? ‘Yeah, I met Sir Anthony Hopkins and shook his hand, but I was completely naked!’”
As if flashing an Oscar-winner weren’t bad enough, Barnard is now also facing a potential nightmare as dystopian as the show’s own conceit. He’s been a background actor in Hollywood since 1995, and when he looks back at his time on Westworld, his biggest concern is that consenting for his digital likeness to be scanned could mark the beginning of the end for his line of work. “The 360-camera thing was set up on the stage, between the set and holding,” he says. “We were all diverted into it without any warning.” As far as he recalls, he was given little information about what his virtual doppelgänger might be used for. While extras sign releases, tech is developing so fast that signing away your likeness is to take a trip into the unknown.