"Living furniture" was how somebody described it to me when I inquired about the scope of my duties the very first time I arrived on set to work as an extra. In other words: be where you're supposed to be, don't make noise when the cameras are rolling, and your only function is to give a scene some background and/or context.

My brief but enjoyable stint as an extra began when I was 16 and searching for a position for my then dream job: a cabin boy on a tropical cruise ship. When I eagerly brought the relevant newspaper posting to my parents, they took one look at me and decided their 16-year old son was not up for sailing the Caribbean all by his lonesome. In a desperate attempt to distract my teenage brain with something shiny, they pointed to the ad next to the cabin boy listing, which turned out to be for a talent agency that specialized in extra work. That summer, I started working as an extra in film and television.

Working as an extra was one of the better jobs I had throughout high school. I got to work in interesting locations all around the city, I got to meet movie stars, and I got to take naps at work. There was one particular project that required me to work with a pretty girl all night for a scene at the country fair—essentially I was being paid to take her out to a fair where all the games and food were free, and I even managed to score a phone number out of it.

Of course like any other job, there were downsides. There were days where I would work until three in the morning. There were times when sitting around for five hours while they set up a particular shot got mind-numbingly dull. There were outdoor shoots during the winter when I was certain I would catch pneumonia. And of course, there were the physical injuries.

During the filming of “The Corruptor”—a film about cops and Chinatown in New York starring Mark Wahlberg (Marky Mark!) and Chow Yun-Fat—I was assigned a part as one of the refugees stowing away aboard an old, giant, rusty cargo ship, which meant we were indeed shooting on an old, giant, rusty cargo ship. After three 16-hour days of being stuck inside this smelly tetanus trap, we were finally nearing the end of the shoot. One of the last scenes we were shooting was a gun fight in the bowels of the ship. There I was, huddled with my fellow Asians (I was often typecast as a refugee) on the cold, wet floor of the ship while gunfire erupted above our heads. As refugees died around me, Chow Yun-Fat was supposed to step into the shot, say his lines and then continue on through the corridor. On cue, he steps into the shot...and right on my hand. Then he pauses there dramatically to deliver his lines before mercifully moving on. Here is a little known fact: Chow Yun-Fat is a large man—probably 6’3, 225 pounds. Why couldn't it have been Marky Mark (maybe 5’6, 180 soaking wet)? But it wasn't his fault—it was dark and dirty, and there's no way he could've known he was standing on my hand. But the next (or more likely, the first) time you watch “The Corruptor,” keep an eye out for a refugee with one hand stuck under Chow Yun Fat's heel and huddled in the fetal position on the floor, trying desperately not to scream in pain.

After all, furniture doesn't make noise.