Hey, who did a little clickbait ever hurt?
The star of the AT&T commercial is a small, wheelchair-bound child that managed to learn music despite the physical disabilities with which she was born.
Remi Rocks showcases the 7-year-old playing a piano solo alongside Los Angeles Youth Orchestra. A kid musician playing with a group of kid musicians, what’s out of the ordinary about that? Well, Remi was born with cerebral palsy and plays the piano with her eyes. Yes, her eyes!
Eye-gaze assistive technology allows the little girl to operate a digital instrument by looking at the keys she wants to press. Is that not mind-blowing?
When someone on set began to explain what we were seeing on stage, I’m sure my jaw physically dropped open. I’d never heard of playing an instrument without the use of one’s physical instrument (body). I still don’t understand how the technology behind this assistive feature for those with disabilities works and I probably never will — I simply appreciate its existence and having witnessed it.
My first time Being in a national commercial
A few years ago, I told y’all how I picked up this a new avenue of gig work via Central Casting, probably the longest-standing agency in TV & film for extras. There’s not a studio lot or filming location in the whole of Hollywood that hasn’t pulled extras for a television show or movie from Central Casting’s database. Central Casting is how you can see snippets of me portraying a college student all up and through a couple seasons of All-American and dancing around as a high school cheerleader on a Netflix movie, even though I’m damn near 30. Shoutout to genetics! My Central Casting profile allowed me to be seen and booked for those, and many other, television and film projects.
In the years since landing my first background acting job, I’ve gotten in more databases for extra lil’ gig work around L.A. and the best have been the agencies that book talent extras for commercials. Though commercial acting work isn’t the most frequent, it’s more worth my time to the point where I stopped wanting to be bothered with TV/film gigs as an extra.
Lately, I’ve been more focused on getting gigs as an extra in commercials and that’s how I found myself in an AT&T ad campaign.
What was my actual role in the nationally-aired commercial?
I was booked as a background extra. Nothing new, right?
Well…
What’s different about this AT&T commercial than all the other background gigs I’ve booked?
THE CHECK!
Baybeeeeeeeeeeee, AT&T cut the check, OKAY?! Whew child, I’m tickled at the thought. I kind of want to get up and go check my post office box to see if AT&T via that West BBDO Ad Agency sent me some more money.
Yeah, more checks came after the fact. RESIDUALS!!! I’d never experienced that.
I’ve seen myself on-screen many of times over in these few years of doing TV, film and now commercial work, but never has it ever resulted in such a considerable difference in pay. My very first television extra gig was for a Disney+ production of Star Wars, a rare blessing that an entertainment rookie like me didn’t even realize at the time. Apparently, aspiring actors spend years, I’m talking 5, 6, 7 years trying to accumulate three “vouchers” to qualify for the working actors’ workers union, SAG-AFTRA. I got all three in my first week of being on-set! Favor ain’t fair and it was shown to me early. And now, this.
Remi Rocks AT&T commercial, of which I was a brief blob that could be missed with a blink, premiered nationally during the 2026 Masters Tournament.
According to union rules, if a person’s likeness can be made out on a union commercial, that individual is considered on-camera and has to be paid the on-camera rate for union performers. I won’t go into all the details of pay, as that’s a completely separate post for another day, but I will mention the general idea of it since I said that was the biggest difference in this new experience.
When I was booked for an extra role on this AT&T commercial, it was a regular commercial rate of 400 bucks for the day — which is a blessing in and of itself because some gigs barely want to pay workers half that amount for a full day of work and that’s what I’m not going for; I go and volunteer for causes when I want to go and volunteer for causes, I’m not working for pennies for billion-dollar companies.
It was a normal day on set as an extra.
For this AT&T commercial, my role and responsibility was no different than any other commercial gig I’d booked and worked as background talent. There was nothing, nowhere that would’ve suggested this on-set work day would turn out any different than any other on-set work day.
Who’d’ve thunk that weeks after working as non-union background and being paid for my work day as a commercial extra that I’d get contacted about signing a union contract as an On-Camera Principal?!
I got upgraded from background extra to on-camera principal in a national commercial!
Whew child, my mama talked my ear off on the phone for over an hour before hanging up two seconds ago and this lil’ greek yogurt bowl topped with berries will only hold me over for a teensy bit longer, so I gotta go. Let me wrap this up because this wasn’t even supposed to be all of this; I wanted to embed the AT&T commercial, put a description and post it… but noooo, miss mouth of the south go’on yap. [rolls eyes]
Long story short, even though it’s a little late for that, I was booked as an indistinguishable background extra for an AT&T commercial and somewhere in the production to post-production process, someone liked something he saw in a frame featuring my face, decided to keep it in the final cut of the commercial that would go to air and boom! I became On-Camera Principal… and more importantly, I got paid as an on-camera principal… RESIDUALS!
Receiving residuals as talent in the entertainment industry could definitely be its own post. You mean to tell me that I did no additional work and randomly received a check in the mail for it?! Chiiiiiiiild. I don’t know if I’m making that make sense, but THAT was the big difference.
Receiving my first residual checks as a creative was crazy.
Usually, and by usually I mean every other time, I go to set, I get paid the agreed upon amount for working on-set that filming day and that’s it, end of story. This time, after being paid a day rate for my physical body being on-set, I continued to earn an income from my likeness being out there working. And baby, it was out there working, okay?! The AT&T commercial had a placement during a national golf tournament known to folks that don’t even know anything about golf, The Masters! What does that mean? It was seen! And what does that mean??? CHA-CHING!
Okay, I said that I was going, y’all, whew. I’m just so blessed and so thankful because those residual checks that came in months after filming Remi Rocks AT&T commercial are saving my behind as we speak!!! It’s slow out here, y’all, I ain’t booking no gigs fr and those residual checks that I received from AT&T are paying my lil’ rent, child. Bless The Lord somebody!! [gets up and starts praise dancing]. No exaggeration, when I left the post office and casually opened the mail from Extreme Reach Talent Agency as I awaited the next train, I began balling. Tears ran down my face and I was damn near weeping aloud; I only somewhat kept my composure due to being in a metro station and not wanting to draw attention to myself.
Is it time to elevate?
OCP me! I told my best guy friend, Calvin.
When I glance back over my blog posts from some years ago about moving into a new type of gig with TV/film, saying how though I appreciated catering gigs around L.A., I was completely over it, I think about how I seem to be hitting that point again, or have hit it and ignored it.
That on-camera principal role in Remi Rocks AT&T commercial fell into my lap. It was given to me; I didn’t go out and get it.
It’s time that I start going out and getting it.
I’m TK, a Creole girl from a settlement not far removed from its pre-colonial roots along the Mississippi River in South Louisiana. I tend to not sit still for long, landing myself in what others may see as odd adventures, and I always have something to say. AROUNDwithTK is where I work out my thoughts these days.