Extras Strip For Big Payday

Wannabe movie stars with no acting skills can earn $1000 a day on the set of a raunchy American show starring Lucy Lawless - if they take their clothes off. Companies casting extras for sex-and-sandals epic Spartacus: Blood and Sand are struggling to find takers for the roles.

Insiders have revealed the daily pay packet for "bedroom scenes" starts at $750 and jumps to $1000 or more with a couple of basic lines to read. Women comfortable with baring their buttocks or breasts earn $500 a day without having to say anything. And amputees, required for gory battle scenes, get a minimum of $240. General extras get to hide beneath togas but are paid the lesser rate of $180 for a 10-hour shift. Perks include free buffets for breakfast, lunch and dinner.


The R18 show is set in the heyday of the Roman empire and follows a slave leading a violent revolt against his gluttonous rulers. It screens on pay TV in the United States. Movie star looks are not essential. Recruitment websites are calling for "amputees, character faces, weathered people and unique looking people" aged 18 to 99. Tall, muscular men are needed to play gladiators.

Kam Talent agent Kim Tian would not comment on pay rates but said the show's producers were desperate for anyone "Roman-looking" with European and African colouring. "We need a lot of people, they just need a good personality." She said the set was "very professional. There's lots of nudity, violence and blood but it's not sleazy."

Extras could count on between two and seven days' work a week between April and September. With a shortage of takers, strippers and prostitutes have been rung in, including Levi Holley, former weatherman for now-defunct Alt TV's Naked News. Auckland escort Carmen Thomas landed a role before her violent death last year.