Extra! Extra!

hello.... it's me again... today's topic is Extras. It's a show created by the guys who created the original British version of The Office. Ricky Gervais and some other guy....
I have watched the first season of this show, and it is definitely one that other people should watch/be watching. Extras: The story of a man with small parts.
Ricky, as a the main character, plays this guy who considers himself a serious actor. Acting is what he wants to do with his life, however, he has perhaps the worst agent in the world (this man is completely uninterested in Ricky's career, at times actually using opportunities that Ricky has created in order to attempt to get other clients gigs). And he has found himself stuck in a seemingly neverending hell of "background artist" jobs. The background artist is what is commonly referred to as the extra. And just in case you don't know, extras are the people you see in every movie who are standing around at the bar in a bar scene, or the fans you see around an actor who is appearing in a scene at a sports arena, or the people waltzing around the park having picnics, walking dogs, jogging, etc.... They are scenery and they get paid a little something...
Ricky uses these little gigs to try to get something bigger in any of the films/tv shows he happens to be an extra in.
Every episode has a guest star played by a major celebrity (either in the American or British realms of entertainment). Because I'm not a major British film/TV watcher, some of these "big" celebrities have escaped me, but they always play themselves as the actor/director who is the big deal in whatever production Ricky finds himself in.
Ricky plays a guy who, frankly, is actually a little hard to like, which is a pretty popular thing to do in storytelling (Seinfeld as a popular example)... He's kinda a bastard very often, but he actually has a fair amount of moral ground that comes about occassionally when he is faced by various situations. One that really stuck out, and I was glad I could find a clip, will play below, but first, I give you a small amount of backstory.
This clip was from an episode where Ben Stiller was playing the director of a film based on a book. The book was about this guy (the author, name/nationality escaping me at the moment) who's family was murdered by the government (or maybe it was invaders... hmm... really losing track of that aspect....) .. Anyway, the author is in the show, and Ricky approaches him to get a line in the movie... the author is looking at photos and shows Ricky a picture of his wife... he thinks it's a picture of her sunbathing, turns out it's a picture of her after she was murdered in the streets... So it's a pretty depressing moment (of a few) in this episode... anyway, point is, he thinks the guy is crazy, insults him behind his back while talking to his best friend (she's in all the episodes with Ricky as they try to find work), and continues to use the guy to try to get lines....
Near the end of the episode, the author is discussing with Stiller about a certain scene and how he didn't think the scene was reflecting the book (and the reality) properly. Ben Stiller freaks out and insults the author and his "dead f***ing wife" and kid, and is making a total ass out of himself... a worker for the movie says something to him and Ben asks him who he is, tells the guy off and fires him, and then Ricky kinda mumbles something to him.... there... longest short set-up for a scene ever... short version: he brings Ben Stiller down several notches...in Britain at least....
here's that scene (the scene i'm talking about starts at 1:58 in the clip, but the rest of this clip kinda builds up to what Stiller's been like throughout the episode)


Anyway... actually made me proud of his character... that doesn't happen all the time when you're watching a show like this...
so... yeah...