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Extras are the people in the background of a film that give life to a scene. A less-than-glamorous job (lots of waiting), they are usually directed by the assistant director.
Usually the extras are furnished with simple instructions like “Hey you in the grey shirt - walk from here to there. You with the cap, sit here, count til 10 and then get up. Don’t look into the camera!”. On some films, each extra gets his/her own role description, including a motivation.
In Wim Wender’s excellent film “Wings of Desire” you can see Peter Falk talk to extras.
And if you happen to see the Oscar nominated film “Elling”, you might even spot yours truly - on 3 occasions 
Thanks to my iceland-based informer, I found out that the BBC has a new series named “Extras”, and here is a hilarious clip from it:
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