There are these characters we see all the time in movies – they aren’t the protagonists, nor the second-level characters. They don’t have more than ten or fifteen minutes of screen time, max.

A doctor who gives some important advice to the hero. “You know that is not how it works.”
The old friend whom he bumps into, who says something that changes the course of the movie. “Remember the time when we…”
The girl in the shop who said something quite ordinary that reminded someone of something. “If I am sad, I would go to my most favourite place.”

An important turning point in the story delivered by an insignificant character.

We know those people so well. I saw him in that movie too. The tough doctor. The smiling angel. The crazy friend. The girl who is sipping juice by the roadside. But I don’t know her name. I remember her name in that movie, but not her real name.

Kate Winslet says in The Holiday, “You’re supposed to be the leading lady of your own life, for god’s sake!”

But are we?

Some of us are. We see them, we know it. Where do we fit in? Are we the heros, or are we the friends, or are we those nameless, insignificant characters who pave the way for the leading characters’ successes?