A Star For A Day

I want to disappear, but I want to be a star. Attention suits me until it doesn’t—a flower from which I perennially pull petals: too many views, not enough, too many, not enough. Sometimes, I get photographed; recognized, sure. But one thing I’ll never be is famous. I much prefer to be a vessel. I decided that a long time ago.

This wasn’t a brush with fame, per se, but it was the closest I’ve been to embodying the tension I feel with attention. I knew I’d be a nameless figure lost in a sea of curated faces, people who probably belonged there more than me. People who were hotter, more contemporary. But still, I’d be on camera, filmed by people I admire who were there to admire someone else. I’d said yes because there was something strangely sexy about being unimportant, about blending into the background of someone else’s spotlight without any real responsibility. My job wasn’t to tell the story; it was barely my job to be a part of it. It was a secret third thing.

About 53 miles from Los Angeles’ very own Silverlake, I found myself in the holding barn of SilverStrand Ranch for Kim Petras and The Chainsmokers’ new music video. “Gutes Guterman," a producer yelled as I walked up to her folding table station to sign away my likeness. "That sounds like a fake name.” In the corner of the paperwork, “EXTRA #20” was circled in Sharpie. “This would look great on you,” said Tommy, the stylist, holding up a scrap of fabric that could loosely be defined as a shirt. Yeah, it would, I thought, because it wouldn’t look anything like me.

My cue that day was “background.” Our set was a barren landscape with a makeshift festival campground. Like Coachella, but worse, or Burning Man, but better. The Val Verde sun was unforgiving, with no trees or buildings nearby to cast a shadow. A white disk suspended in endless blue. It was the kind of sun that pressed down on you, seeping into your skin until you could feel the burn starting beneath the surface. I could sense the redness forming on my shoulders. Around me, others were turning varying shades of pink and red. I would apply 14 coats of sunscreen that day.

We were shuttled from one holding area to another in golf carts that kicked up clouds of sand, making the air gritty and dry. Each holding area was just a different patch of desert land, indistinguishable except for the angle of the sun. It felt like summer camp—the constant movement, the mix of excitement and boredom, the way temporary friendships formed and faded between takes.

The paradox of wanting to be seen while also knowing that your place in the spotlight is, at best, temporary, is a strange kind of freedom. I think about how the camera always seemed to be in the wrong place, its lens an eye that saw right through me, yet I still yearned to be framed within its gaze. It’s an odd dance, this desire to belong where you’re not meant to be, a blend of insecurity and exhibitionism. All it took to send us streaming around a manmade mudhole, carved out of the earth with an excavator, filled to the brim by a water truck, was a simple rallying cry: "THREE...TWO...BACKGROUND...ACTION!" By take 7, we'd perfected our route.

They don’t tell you how weird it is when your job, not your desire, is to fade. When you’re just a blur, a flicker in the corner of someone else’s stage. For a moment, you’re part of this fabricated reality. You don’t exactly matter, but in the haze of it all, you convince yourself that you really do. The strange thing is, even though it’s all fake—the fog, the mud, the lights—it still feels kind of real. Real in the way that a dream feels real when you’re inside of it—isolated but alive.

In a way, The Chainsmokers are the poets of our disjointed age. Among the dust clouds and mud puddles, I found myself dancing through their fog of high-octane charisma and Las Vegas promises. Alex and Drew—as they would introduce themselves—stitch together fragments of desire, regret, and that peculiar yearning for a blurry past you didn't necessarily experience but can easily imagine. Their songs are catchy loops that are equal parts parody and anthem. It’s impossible not to get stuck inside of the repeating choruses.

“You know, the scene is only convincing if there’s two girls in the booth with them,” we said to the director about the scene, the spectacle taking over me. With the arrival of the duo, the morning’s apprehension morphed into a kind of hunger, a craving to occupy even a sliver of screen time. The line between fear and desire blurred, and what once felt like an intrusion became a longing in which the only thing more alluring than the role was the idea of becoming it. The director agreed with our vision, so we climbed up into the DJ booth with them, letting the spirit of the party replace our common sense.

And then there was Kim. I stood there, unsure if my boobs would stay inside my "shirt," feeling like I was teetering on the edge of some invisible line between my real self and this temporary persona I’d possessed. Kim Petras didn’t care about the line—she erased it. Her world is charged with this kind of sex appeal that makes the ordinary feel electric, as if she’s commanding the laws of gravity and desire with each move.

Around her, it’s easy to slip into a new persona for the camera, like donning a costume that was always meant to fit. The borders between who you are and who you pretend to be evaporate, and gradually, the role becomes more familiar than when you first began. There’s a seductive power in this borrowed identity, but it’s also disorienting to realize that in the midst of performing, you’ve momentarily forgotten the contours of your true self.

Suddenly, you’re someone else. You’re caught in the chorus. You’re falling through the fantasy. You’re younger. Hotter. More dramatic. You’re wearing a green leopard print tube top and staring straight into the camera. You’re behind the DJ booth. You’re drenched in fake rain, real sweat. You’re caked with mud from a mountain range you’ll never climb.

But then the song ends. It’s a wrap, and you’re back in your Jeep, driving down I-5, the air outside heavy with dust, and it’s just you again—older, more cautious, fully clothed, flipping through stations because your car is too old for CarPlay. The adrenaline fades, and you’re left with the quiet aftermath, a stark contrast to the clamor of lights and lenses. It’s a soft comedown, a gentle return to reality where the echoes of your performance linger, reminding you that what was once so electrifying is now just a four second cameo immortalized by Chris Maggio. The lights in your house come on, and you remember you’ve got work tomorrow.

That’s the thing about being in the background. You can dip in and out of someone else’s dream, slip on their skin for a few songs, but you don’t have to stay. You can enjoy the thrill of feeling like part of something bigger without being consumed by it. For a fleeting second, you borrow their energy, their carelessness, their confidence. It rubs off on you. It’s temporary, and there’s beauty in that. And you can slip out the side door before the real party starts.