'World's greatest extra' with over 100 credits has a least favourite movie he's worked on

He's sometimes referred to as the 'world's greatest extra' with over 100 credits to his name, but among those there's one movie which Jesse Heiman reveals was the worst to work on.

Jesse Heiman got his start as an extra on the set of American Pie 2 after losing a job, with his roommate convincing him to give it a go.

He ended up getting credited as 'Petey', the trombone player sitting in the back of a school bus in the sequel to the 1999 comedy American Pie.

From there his career really exploded and a year later he was appearing as high school students in superhero flick Spider-Man, spy spoof Austin Powers in Goldmember and biographical drama Catch Me If You Can.

Over his career he's appeared as an extra in more than 100 projects, showing up in the backgrounds of some movies and a whole load of TV shows, plus a 2013 commercial where he spent most of it kissing model Bar Refaeli.

Universal Pictures

Speaking to eBaum's World, Jesse opened up about his incredible career and remembered the movie he liked working on the least throughout a long career which has included The Social Network, Bad Neighbours and 17 Again.

"I can remember working on the movie Ali with Will Smith as Muhammad Ali, we were shooting like five days in a row at the old LA Sports arena that doesn't exist right now," the prolific extra explained as he recounted his worst movie.

"It was brutal, there was probably like 3,000 or 4,000 extras on set every day. Which is atrocious when you're trying to get through a line."

Sony Pictures

"Before we actually get on set there's a lot of waiting in line to do stuff. Wait in a giant line to check in, wait in a giant line to eat breakfast, wait in a giant line to put on your wardrobe then you may get to sit down for a couple of minutes but then they send you straight to set."

It didn't sound like much fun at all and Jesse went on to say that the 'technical term for a show like that or a scene like that is called cattle call' where everyone in the background gets treated 'like moving livestock'.

Sony Pictures Releasing

While that was his least favourite job in a long and storied career as an extra, Heiman revealed that he did have a role which he liked doing above all the rest.

The actor said he'd had regular extra work on the TV show Chuck as he was one of their main background characters and kept getting asked back.

Topics: Film and TV, Celebrity

Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

@MrJoeHarker