1. Sarah Turner Holland, 33
"I worked down in Atlanta [as an extra] on The Hunger Games, and that casting director has a list of people that she trusts, who she knows will be there on time and whatnot. She sent an email saying, 'Hey, I need actors for this really big convention scene — they're having issues with all the fangirls. We need people tomorrow.' Savannah is about an 11-hour drive from where I am [in Louisville, Kentucky]. But then she told me what movie it was for and I said, 'I'll make an exception.'
When I got there, people who had been there all week said some people had started fighting. There were girls who were in the back and they wanted to be in the front, and they didn't understand continuity and that kind of stuff, and people started fighting — like, knocking chairs over, taking earrings off. And they had to escort people out and not let them back on set. You send out casting call for Magic Mike extras, girls are going to come out of the woodwork. So the final, day they had to rush in more people because they had lost so many.
I got the phone call around 3 o'clock in the afternoon and had to be on set at 7:30 a.m. I'm married and I have two kids, so I had to quickly organize things. Then I drove all night, walked in the door at 7:15. But it was completely worth it.
They strategically placed us where they needed us. For the first couple of hours, I was just up against a bar, but it happened to be one of the best places to stand, because [they were shooting] tWitch and Channing in the crowd, before it was their turn onstage. I was standing right next to them. We had to shoot that probably five or six different ways from several angles, and that took several hours. I met a couple of girls I'm really good friends with now. We were standing there and holding pretend drinks, and I hear Channing's voice behind me, like he's laughing at tWitch or something. I've met a lot of actors — Jennifer Lawrence, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Mel Gibson — but when I heard his voice? I had to pull it together before I could turn around.
A couple of girls were commenting on tWitch's abs, like, 'Pull your shirt up.' And Channing's like, 'This guy looks like he's built by Legos.' So he pulls [tWitch's] shirt up. They're just cracking jokes back and forth. Channing's kind of a dork. He's kind of a big kid just making silly jokes like he's a teenager or college student.
I did say one thing to him, I couldn't resist, when I heard him snort. I turned around, I was like, 'Really?' He was like, 'What? Like your laugh is any better.' I was like, 'My laugh's adorable.' Quick conversation. But then we had to get back to filming.
We broke for lunch and came back, and we were switched to a different section. I was actually on Channing's side [of the stage]. I'm not a fangirl, but I had to hold on to the stage a couple of times.
They would do a section of [the dance], then stop. Dance, then stop. They did it all the way through a couple of times, but they wanted specific close-ups for obvious reasons. And Channing and tWitch were up there, determined to get their dance perfect. They didn't leave the stage the whole time. The only time tWitch left was because he actually ripped his pants. They're supposed to be pull-away pants, but they didn't tear right.
They made us wait until, like, 7 o'clock that night to see that part when they pull the pants away — like, they would get to that point every time and then cut. And when they finally did it, it was pandemonium. There was no acting involved at that point. I mean, money was falling from the skies and people were screaming and jumping up and down.
When they ripped off their pants, they had nothing on but that little bag and a thong. Well, that little bag was really loose. And [tWitch's penis] kept popping out of it. He was on my side of the stage [at that point] because him and Channing switch sides — and he's not shy. He was like, 'Oh, sorry about that!' and popped it back in. I mean, with those dance moves, how could it not swing out?
There was one more scene I had to do after that, where Matt Bomer is just dancing in the middle of the crowd. I'm in that, in the trailer. It's for a second, but I'm right behind him. When he came out to do that scene, he looked at the ladies around him and said, 'OK, ladies, you have to make me look straight.'
So then after that scene the director came out and said, 'Now we're going to play music.' He told us not to sing the music, to just use the beat to dance. He said confetti and money will be falling from the ceiling, and some of the characters are going to run into the crowd and high-five us. And then he let us move throughout the room. That was the final [scene]. Then they brought out a cart with Champagne bottles and drinks for the actors. Channing opened up a bottle up and got on the microphone and thanked all of us.
He thanked every individual cast member that was still there — Jada [Pinkett Smith] was still there, Joe Manganiello. Sofia Vergara, she's not in the movie, but she was still there. She was there the whole day I was there. They would say cut and she would walk on stage and sit with [Joe]. Channing's wife was there too. She got there right before the part where he was stripping the pants off. And he was like, 'Really? This is the scene you walk in on?' She kind of yelled up to him and was like, 'I don't get this at home!' She was really cool about it."
2. Dana Schiller, 41
"I saw the casting call on Facebook. It was like, 'Hey, we need more ladies for this convention scene.' Me and my aunt kept talking about it and I said, 'You know what? Let's just do it and submit a photo,' because I'd never done anything like that, never even been to a strip show in my life. And we heard right back. They were like, 'Come on.' And we were like, 'Oh my goodness, we're going to be in the movie.'
We had to be at the shoot at 5:30 or 6 in the morning. It turned out to be a 16-hour workday. I remember that because we had to wear heels and club gear, and my feet were literally numb by the end of the night. I took my heels off when it was over and walked barefoot all the way out of that arena. But while we were shooting, I didn't feel the pain. It's not every day that I can stand there and observe these fantastic gentlemen perform.
When we got there, it was very crowded. We're talking about 600 people in a huge room with high-profile people, so we all had to go through security and our bags were checked and phones were taken. They us divided us into different sections. They shot the convention [scene] in three days, so the girls that had been there since the beginning were already assigned sections. I was there the last day, for the big finale with Channing and tWitch. We were considered the newbies, so we had not yet been assigned sections. I moved around, but I was [mostly] at Adam Rodriguez's stage. I still got to see everything else just fine; the room was not a big room at all.
When we got placed, [Adam] was the first person I see and I'm like, 'Oh my goodness, he's right there!' I remember going in for a teeny little high-five [toward the end of the night] and when he put his hand out, I was like, 'I'm not turning that down.' But then everyone behind me saw it and went crazy. I remember looking at him straight in the eyes, because I knew what I had just started; I said, 'I'm so sorry.'
He was taking a lot of selfies with the girls in the background. He took probably 70-something pictures, and we get home the next day and on his Instagram he posted a collage and there were four pictures — and we made his pictures. It was like, 'You've got to be kidding me. Of all the pictures.' That made it feel so real.
Channing and tWitch would practice [the dance] before the cameras would start rolling. The choreographer [Alison Faulk] was there, she was singing the words to the song while they did it in slow motion to make sure they had their moves together. [At the end], Channing was talking and saying thanks to everyone, how they couldn't have done it without us, that we made it so much easier for them. He said, 'Can we get a little bit of music?' Then 'Anaconda' came on and everyone went crazy. They had a mini dance-off.
I'm so looking forward to seeing the whole thing. A lot of hours went into putting together just several moments of the movie. That's what interested me the most. I was fascinated with everything that went on behind the camera. I had never done anything [having] to do with acting before. I had worked in law enforcement for 21 years, since I was 19, here at the Georgia Department of Corrections. But Magic Mike XXL opened my eyes to a whole different world. I was like, 'I've got to do this.'
I have since stopped working with law enforcement and I'm working [on sets] now. I've done [extra work in] television and other films, and I've seen myself on the screen. But I like behind the scenes. I really think that's what I want to go for. I've still got to piece together exactly what I want to do, but [the experience] turned my life around in a good way."
3. Krys Whyms Anderson, 27
"I was listening to the radio and heard that Magic Mike 2 was filming. I got the email address to submit photos, my wife was my photographer, and I sent them. About a week before they started shooting, I received an email saying, 'We'd love for you to be an extra.' I was at Domina, not the convention center. And when they said Jada Pinkett Smith was going to be the owner of the club — oh my god, are you kidding me? I love Jada. Love. I love everything about her.
She's very small in stature, so tiny. I wouldn't say adorable because she's got a strong presence about her. But she's also pretty quiet. Between scenes, she would put on her slippers — because she would otherwise have on these sky-high heels — and she would just have a seat amongst us. We didn't braid each other's hair or anything, but if anyone did ask her a question, she definitely responded, she smiled.
There's a scene where she takes a young lady to be serenaded by Donald Glover, and I'm in that. I play [the girl's] friend, I guess. I'm not starstruck, or usually I don't get all up in a hubbub unless it's, like, Beyoncé or someone like that but, again, it's Jada Pinkett Smith, so I was so excited to be in a scene with her. I breathed the same air as Jada. And then I was right in the front as Donald Glover's serenading that lady. That was great.
I wasn't in the room when Channing did his dance, but I was right behind him when he did a backflip into the room; he got called out [by Rome], then he ran out and did a backflip back into the room. When he had to turn around, I was right there. They were like, 'You need to make sure you step back like you're blown away.' He did that backflip about 10 times. And each time, the space around me, there were these girls that were trying to get [in], so I had to be like, 'I can't back up if you're trying to be right over my shoulder. Sorry, honey, but you need to back up a little bit.' I got some pretty prime real estate.
After that, everybody just closed in, which is what they wanted them to do anyways. The club had to look full. So I did not get to see Channing's full dance. But he wasn't tired or anything. He's a professional and great what he does. He's gonna get it done. He was determined, like, 'OK, I can do it, I can do this with my eyes closed, I've got this. OK, you need to get this shot? Then you get it because I'll flip all day.'
Adam Rodriguez was there; he was kind of chummy with some of the girls. And the really, really tall guy, Joe Manganiello, he was so cool, because he came out eating — he was taking a break or whatever, and someone brought him this little Tupperware filled with meat. So one of the girls asked him, 'What are you eating?' and he turned around and was like, 'Beef. Want some?' He was going for it, with all that beef. He didn't even try to make it sound fancy or anything. No frills.
We had the best time. Now, our feet may not have had the best time. Those are some long hours in heels."
4. Tracy Sabo, 22
"I was living in Florida with my family, and in the Northern Florida area, there isn't a lot of acting work [and I'm an actress]. So when I found out about Magic Mike, I decided to do it for the experience; it would be my first big major motion picture set. And it was just crazy. There were so many girls. A lot a lot of estrogen.
I was in front of Adam's stage, and he was wonderful. Whenever we weren't shooting, he was so charming and charismatic and wanted to talk to us. I was like, 'This is the best stage in the whole room,' because he was that sweet.
And Matt Bomer was so cute. He has an amazing voice. [Editor's note: He sings D'Angelo's "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" in his scene.] In between takes, there was a point where he talked to all of us on the microphone, and Channing said, 'I don't know if you guys knew this, but this is Matt's voice, this is him singing.' And everyone was just shocked. Matt took the mic and actually sang his routine for us, like, off-camera. He was otherwise lip-syncing. But he sounded just as amazing live as he did on the track.
I know I was just an extra, but being on set is what I live for. I love doing this stuff and it was amazing to be able to be in the same vicinity as these professionals. Seeing them strip over and over and over again and getting paid for it isn't half-bad either."
5. Mia Amini, thirtysomething
"I shot one day at the convention center and three days at Domina. First off, I'm a chick in her 30s, so I have not been to the club in a minute. So [to pick my outfit] here's legit what I did: I grabbed all my club clothes out of my closet and I started texting my ex-boyfriends some options. The wardrobe woman went with nothing they picked. But I got the nickname Cheeks, because of the way my skirt hit my butt cheeks.
There's nothing that any woman has seen in real life that can compare to when you are in front of the world's most beautiful men. We got to lose our minds and be so uninhibited and wild and free and crazy. Shooting the club scenes, everyone was just feeding off each other and the energy. And I will tell you this: Jada Pinkett Smith is one of the sexiest women alive.
You just feel her energy when she steps into the room. She was so kind, respectful, and positive. She spoke so many nice things to us, like, 'Ladies, how are you feeling? How are you doing? Thank you for being here, thank you for your energy.' She made your self-esteem go up by just being in the same room as her. I tried to make a lot of eye contact. I just wanted to feel her power.
They reminded us before we went on set every day: 'Don't be creepy when you're on set. Don't go crazy. Don't lose your mind. Remember that you're here working.' My favorite command [from the director] at the convention scene was, 'Make it rain some more. More dollars. Throw more money at the men.' He didn't really have to tell us to get into it though. How could you not scream when Channing, Adam, and Joe are coming out of the stage in front of you? It's a natural human response.
The movie coming here was probably one of the best things that happened to this town and one of the best things that happened to women's sexuality. Women felt like goddesses when they went home; they were like, 'Oh my goodness, I'm so excited to see my man,' or, 'I'm so excited to feel better about myself.' I just feel like every woman came out with sore feet from their high heels and a sense of her body and her sexiness, feeling like she can do anything."
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