It may be hard for some big-shots in the entertainment industry to remember, but almost everyone started at the bottom of said industry at one point in his or her career.
Mike Mercury is like a lot of stand-ups who want the success and stature gained from appearing in hit movies. That was inside him before he became a comic 10 years ago, because the Wisconsin native was an actor before becoming a jokemaker.
Mercury’s family was brought up to treat others with kindness and respect. But he would have carried those traits with him up the ladder of success anyway, because he’s been at the bottom rung as a production assistant for several movies.
PAs basically do grunt work, like picking up payrolls, making copies of scripts, going out for sandwiches and snacks and other menial tasks. And as it befits the job, PAs sometimes also get dumped on for no particular reason.
“Their egos get so far out of check, I think,” Mercury says of the producers, directors, stars and anyone else on movie locations who think they’re hot stuff on a cool day.
Mercury, who was a PA on several movies, including “Three Amigos!” and “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” remembers one unnamed film he worked on more than 10 years ago, where it seemed like he was everyone’s favorite whipping boy.
Mercury says he was in the presence of the director, writer, producer and a few others during a break in filming. “I don’t know what I was doing at the table” with them, the 36-year-old says now.
“I probably should have known better . . . I was always looking for a way in, so if I had to go sit down uninvited that was not really a hindrance. I’d just go sit down. But it did cause me some problems later.”
In this particular case, it was a big-time problem.
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The director was talking about his first experience working on a film, a shoot that took place in Turkey. “Somebody says, `What were you doing on the film?’ ” Mercury says, “and he looks right at me . . . and said, `I was a lowly, scum-sucking PA.’ “
Mercury says he wasn’t even in the conversation, and even some of the people at the table were a little offended by the jab. But it was the director who made the remark, so nobody went out of their way to stand up for Mercury.
“They have a way of either thinking that’s going to make you stronger, or that’s going to weed out the weak ones,” Mercury says of the routine practice of sticking it to PAs.
In another instance, Mercury was standing in line for lunch, when “this woman taps me on the shoulder and says, `Excuse me, what are you doing in line in front of me?’ ” Mercury says. “I said waiting for lunch. She says, `Yeah, but I am the second assistant director and you’re a PA.’ “
Mercury was made to go to the end of the line.
It comes as no surprise that Mercury will go out of his way to treat people better whenever he gets that chance to be a star in his own film.
Mercury, who has appeared on A&E’s “An Evening at the Improv” and Showtime’s “Comedy Club Network,” is scheduled to headline this weekend at the Funny Bone in Naperville (1504 Naper Blvd.-Tower Crossing Shopping Center; call 630-955-0500.