Robert Pat­tin­son stood inches from me. Reese With­er­spoon and Christoph Waltz, both Oscar win­ners, were only feet away. Directly in front of me, and behind the cam­era, sat Rodrigo Pri­eto, an Oscar-nominated direc­tor of photography.

I should have been com­pletely awestruck at the level of tal­ent that sur­rounded me. Yet the only thing I could truly focus on was my aching feet and legs due to the flat slip­pers the wardrobe depart­ment had given me to wear – and hav­ing to stand on them for hours on end.

Play­ing the Tall Man, a non-speaking, featured-extra role in the film “Water for Ele­phants” proved to be equal parts fun and exhausting.

Based on the pop­u­lar book of the same name by Sara Gruen, the story is about a young man who joins a Depression-era cir­cus. I was cast as a part of a group of sideshow per­form­ers that included a midget, Wolf­boy, the Fat Lady, the Strong Man and a cou­ple of contortionists.

My job was to be present in the back­ground and, in some cases, right up next to the lead actors. I sup­pose my claim to fame was the scene in which I and a few other men phys­i­cally shoved Pat­tin­son to the front of a group of cir­cus work­ers so that he could be prop­erly “ini­ti­ated” into the cir­cus life by being sprayed with water, pelted with pies and kissed by the showgirls.

But there were other scenes, too, includ­ing one on the sleep­ing car of the train, another when I stood with Pat­tin­son and a few oth­ers and watched With­er­spoon cavort with an elephant.

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