ROANOKE TIMES  
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, January 3, 1996             TAG: 9601030031
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 7    EDITION: METRO  
COLUMN: The People Column
SOURCE: KATHLEEN WILSON
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
      Published correction ran on January 4, 1996.    The movie mentioned in 
      the People column in Wednesday's Extra section is titled "A Time To 
      Kill." Also, the correct spelling of the director's name is Joel 
      Schumacher.

THE PEOPLE COLUMN

Thanks to the luck of having an uncle who is a portrait photographer in Jackson, Miss., Laurel Silber, 19, of Floyd County landed a plum job as an extra in what's sure to be a big-bucks, mega-hit movie: "A View To A Kill."

The film, based on John Grisham's best-selling novel about a race-related trial in a small Southern town, is packed with big names.

Silber was happy to spill the beans about them all recently while having her hair done at Michelle's Hair Salon on Franklin Road.

"An energetic, beautiful person who never stopped smiling," is how she described Sandra Bullock.

Silber also liked director Joel Schumaker. "He was incredible, brilliant, awesome," she gushed. "he held my hand once and told me how happy he was to have me there." But Silber was less impressed with the even bigger names.

She described Donald Sutherland as "very aloof, very tall, into his own thing so much that he was scary."

Kiefer Sutherland is "a really short man and he has no butt." She respected Samuel L. Jackson, but found him to be the most intense member of the cast. "He is very serious. If he didn't think someone was taking a scene seriously, he lashed out. Yet he was polite and cordial. Just really respecful of the movie."

Silber is thrilled because she appears "right behind him" in a cinematic confrontation between the local Klan and those demonstrating to free Jackson's character from jail.

The realistic sequence actually frightened her. "There was so much energy and intensity and tension. I was scared. I felt like I was at a real KKK rally."

Silber even caught a glance or two of author John Grisham.

What's he like?

"Very rich. And he acts like it."

Since the film was shot in the small town of Canton, Silber said people were always asking her for her autograph.

I kept telling them that I was nobody. But they told me 'you will be someday.'"

LENGTH: Medium:   51 lines