A look back at the incredible journey of Jesse Heiman, the most famous Hollywood extra that you’ve probably already seen in the cinema or on television.
He watched Peter Parker and Flash Thompson fight at the start of the first Spider-Man, he shared an amphitheater with Jesse Eisenberg in David Fincher’s The Social Network, he attended a fake Spanish class given by Leonardo DiCaprio in Stop -me if you can, he was part of the Buy More staff in the series Chuck…
At 43, Jesse Heiman already has around forty feature films in his filmography, and at least as many series. Most likely you’ve all seen it somewhere, and yet no one really knows it.
Easily recognizable with his youthful appearance with round cheeks and curly hair, he is quite simply the most famous extra in Hollywood!
Born in 1978 in Boston, Jesse Heiman dreamed of making it as an actor, and decided to move to Los Angeles at the age of 22 to begin a career on film and television sets.
Very quickly hired to play small roles on rather large projects, he collected appearances and extras over the years. Although he has never really obtained a leading role (except in music videos or Super Bowl commercials), he can, however, boast of having worked with the greatest!
Jumbled together, between 2001 and today, we have been able to see Jesse Heiman at the cinema in American Pie 2, Austin Powers Goldmember, Catch Me If You Can by Steven Spielberg, Spider-Man by Sam Raimi, Freaky Friday, The Social Network by David Fincher or even Transformers 3 by Michael Bay (the latter himself asked to work with him!).
On the series side, Heiman also benefits from an impressive filmography, since he has appeared (among others) in NCIS, Entourage, Bones, Arrested Development, Heroes, Monk, How I Met Your Mother, Parks and Recreation, and even Glee.
Note that he also obtained two small, more regular roles in the series Chuck (where he plays an employee of the Buy More store) and in The Big Bang Theory (where he plays in 5 episodes).
While waiting for Hollywood to finally offer him a leading role, what do you think of Jesse Heiman’s atypical career? In what other films or series do you think you recognized him?
(Re)discover the trailer for “The Social Network”…