Cleveland FOX anchor Stefani Schaefer talked about her time as an extra for the iconic Christmas movie, “A Christmas Story.”
While the WJW anchor doesn’t share any stories about the leg lamp, she does say she and her brother were invited to be in the movie after the talent agency they belonged to sent their pictures to producers. Later, her parents were also included in the film.
Schaefer said despite only being in a couple of scenes, she learned a lot about the amount of work that goes into movie making.
“We shot that scene of all the kids up on that stairwell going to see Santa for a long time, and when you finally see the final production of the movie, it’s not on there that long. You learn that you have to be patient, that work takes a long time, especially something like that; that a lot goes into something, but it was just a great experience for us, and we all got little checks at the end so it was great!”
And the relationship with the rest of the cast made it even more special.
“You know something that I remember so much about the movie is Peter Billingsley, obviously the star of the movie, but he was so nice to everyone,” Stefani said. “My brother and I, we were just extras, but we filmed for several days. (Billingsley) was so nice to all of us. We would play games together; we would hang out together during breaks; we would eat together. He never seemed like he was the star, and like was he was untouchable.”
Like many families, Stefani’s family watches ‘A Christmas Story’ every year.
“It’s always so fun to sit with my kids now and watch it and point out everybody and talk about the day when we used to shoot,” she said. “It was just such an incredible experience. We never ever dreamt at the time it would be such a big movie and so many years later so popular.”