Wearing a black leather motorcycle jacket with large, studded lapels over a grungy white T-shirt, Tim Ostrom clutched a black and red biker’s helmet and an electronic cigarette as he proudly burst out of Meddin Studios’ front door.
Minutes after reading a script Tuesday afternoon for talent evaluators looking for extras for the upcoming rock movie “CBGB” that will begin filming there June 25, the 31-year-old excitedly slapped hands with fellow movie hopeful Shane Gray.
“I’m in,” Ostrom said. “They said they like me, man. Told me to grow my sideburns out.”
The 35-year-old, heavily tattooed Gray also left the Louisville Road studio Tuesday afternoon expecting to have a small role in the movie.
Almost 900 others — from middle-aged rockers who’ve played the legendary New York club that provides the movie’s name to young silver screen hopefuls who knew little of its sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll persona — filled out paperwork, posed for headshots and read lines hoping for a chance to be an extra in the film about the club in the 1970s when it was frequented by such acts as the Ramones, Blondie and Talking Heads.
Talent evaluators were looking for people with a distinctly 1970s look, bikers and musicians, said Randall Miller, who is directing and producing the movie with his wife, Jody Savin.
“It’s going pretty well. This is pretty exciting,” Miller said. “There’s a lot of people here. There seem to be some good rock ’n’ roller-types, got some good bikers and party people that are going to be in the clubs.”
Ostrom, who grew up in north New Jersey and frequented CBGB — that closed in 2006 — and other bars at the Bowery in the late 1990s and early 2000s, fit the look.
“They brought me in there, they sat me down, and I read my little lines,” he said. “It was pretty simple, you know. I’d never really done it before; it was pretty painless. I put on a little of the Jersey accent in there, and they said they liked me.
“They asked me about availability and told me not to cut my hair. I’d be proud to be in this movie.”
Although she knew little about CBGB, 23-year-old recent Georgia Southern University graduate Victoria Seward hoped an extra role in the movie could help jumpstart her into a television career.
“I got pulled aside from the extras and got asked for an audition for a speaking part,” Seward said from her seat on the ground in the studio’s waiting room with about 40 others. “It’s my first audition ever, but, honestly, I’m so hungry at this point that all my nerves are gone.”
On the other side of the room, 41-year-old Gene Odom leaned back in his chair with a leather jacket in his lap. Like Seward, it was his first time auditioning for a role as an extra in a film; unlike her, Odom is very familiar with the club.
In fact, Odom — who was wearing an old, grey T-shirt with “CBGB” emblazoned across the front — played the rock club in the 1990s with his band Kill Factor.
“We were playing somewhere in Virginia and someone said, ‘There’s an opening in CB’s.’ Hell yeah, we were going.”
Despite playing for a crowd of only about 20 people at 2 p.m., Odom said it was one of his most cherished memories.
“That’s my claim to fame. I got to stand on the stage and play in the place where all of my idols played,” he said. “Got to spit on the floor, it was kind of crazy. How many people can say they did that?”