Back in 2014, I was offered the opportunity to be an extra in Russell Crowe's directorial debut, The Water Diviner. My wife and I drove to Burra in South Australia’s mid-north, where the movie was being shot on location at the Unicorn Brewery Cellars. We arrived early in the morning – Karen, my wife, was not allowed to stay, so she spent the day in Burra exploring the town's history and cemeteries.

  The underground cellars were staged as a Turkish tea house. We arrived, and I checked in, not knowing what to expect. I was given a costume and some makeup, and then told to sit at a table and wait. After an hour or so, a production person came and took a photo of each and every individual extra. We were then told to wait again.

  Around lunch time, a red carpet was rolled out from the kitchen truck, and a very large helicopter landed on the nearby Burra oval. James Packer and Miranda Kerr arrived, as did Russell Crowe, Cem Yilmaz, Yilmaz Erdogan and some of the other main stars. This created an excited buzz, and we were told once Russell and his VIPs had been fed, we could go eat from the vast banquet prepared! 
  There was a pecking order to the kitchen, and we were last – but that was ok with me – it was a million times better than the crap we put up with when I filmed Haunting Australia (We were given spaghetti bolognaise at Geelong Gaol, but not plates, bowls or cutlery – at Cockatoo Island, we were given Woolworths soup and one sandwich each – this movie was like a glorious banquet compared to that experience).

 After eating and sitting around a while longer, we were all taken to the filming set in the Unicorn Brewery Cellar. All the extras were playing Turks getting ready to go to war. I was given a white cap, so I think I was playing a cleric (I don’t actually know). We filmed the same scene multiple times, and from different angles. One lucky extra got to throw Russell down the stairs!

 After filming, Russell Crowe came to every person on set, shook their hands, and thanked them – what a great guy!

After we finished filming, we were all lined up, and Russell selected a handful of extras to be in the next day's scene, which was the blowing up of the train carriage on the Pichi Richi railway line. I wasn’t chosen, but that’s ok, I don’t think a fat man would’ve made a convincing Turkish soldier just after World War One. 

Anyways, I’ve included some screenshots of my 3 seconds of airtime.

Here’s a little info on the movie:

The Water Diviner was released in 2014 and directed by Russell Crowe, was shot on digital using ARRI ALEXA XT Camera and Panavision Primo Anamorphic Lenses with Andrew Lesnie as cinematographer and editing by Matt Villa.

Starring | Russell Crowe, Olga Kurylenko, Jai Courtney, Isabel Lucas

Directed by | Russell Crowe

Cinematography by | Andrew Lesnie

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