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MANSFIELD - During the school year, Alex Salachi has shouted: "Time out!" During the summer, he reacts to: "Action!"

Known locally as the former boys' basketball coach and current head librarian at Xaverian Brothers High School, Salachi is a longtime TV and movie extra.

His credits include the Showtime drama series "The Brotherhood," where, he said, "I was one of maybe a dozen Rhode Island politicians viewing brochures and architectural renderings of the 'waterfront proposal' " in one episode; the independent film "Wait Until Dark," where he played an insane asylum orderly; and a Lahey Clinic commercial, where he played a surgeon.

"I stop in Town News in downtown Mansfield quite often, and the young guy at the register finally asked me once if I was a doctor," said Salachi, a lifelong resident of Mansfield, where he was a baseball and basketball standout from 1969 to 1971.

"In the emergency room at Norwood Hospital, a doctor and nurse approached me to ask what my specialty was - they were incredulous when they learned that TV commercials don't always use real doctors." This interview was conducted by e-mail.

SUN CHRONICLE: So, how did you catch the acting bug?

ALEX SALACHI: It might be stretching it a bit to call being an extra actually "acting."

As a student at Mansfield High School, I was in a few plays and then in college at Assumption College, I played the lead role in Shakespeare's "Tempest."

But then I did very little until the early '90s. I was between marriages and thought that taking acting classes and auditioning for parts might be a good way to meet women, and that's how I ended up back in the theater.

SC: What was your first professional role? How did you get it?

SALACHI: I auditioned for a part on Cape Cod, a small theater trying to produce a play called "Bullpen," which was set in the Red Sox bullpen.

I landed a part, but then other actors dropped out of the production, and with three guys remaining, the director found a play called "Orphans." It was a great experience being on stage for almost the entire play.

A year after that, I played the same role at a theater in Milford.

As far as movies go, I think - but my memory is kind of foggy on this - that I was first an extra in "The Next Karate Kid." SC: What was it like then, being on a set for the first time? Do you have a favorite memory of that experience?

SALACHI: It was a 14-hour day in a bowling alley in Dorchester and it was a blast just watching how the director and crew set up the shot and how we, as extras, had to run through the scene countless times.

But the thing I remember most is talking to a guy who had been pulled out of the extra crowd during the filming of Paul Newman's "The Verdict" and ended up with some lines in the funeral parlor scene near the start of the film. So, he ended up in the union and was still receiving small residual checks from that film. That's when I latched onto a reason for doing this, for spending 14 hours for little pay, with the hope that I might get pulled out of the crowd at some point.

SC: How often have you been on screen since then?

SALACHI: It's hard to say because I haven't seen every movie where I've worked as an extra, and I didn't do any work for about eight years while our kids were young.

I was in a burial scene for a movie shot in Boston and I never saw the film. And I was in a restaurant scene shot in the North End for a made-for-German-TV film that I never saw. I did get pulled out of the crowd with three other extras to read for the part as the waiter in that film, but I wasn't selected.

I was visible in an indie film starring Katherine Ross, "Home After Dark" I think it was called. I was an insane asylum orderly wheeling a patient from her house into an ambulance. And I was clearly visible in "The Great Debaters," where "I was one of many Harvard alumni. I was fortunate to be placed in the front row," and again in Showtime's "The Brotherhood" last year.

SC: How do you choose the roles to pursue? How often are you rejected?

SALACHI: There's really not much choice involved on my part.

I wait to see what's going on during the summer, since, as a teacher, I'm not going to be taking days off from work to spend time on a movie set. You wait in line with sometimes, without exaggeration, thousands of people and then hand in your headshot and resume and hope you get a call.

Right now, there are two big films shooting in Massachusetts, one with Adam Sandler and the other with Mark Wahlberg. I have not been called for either one. Rejection happens more often than finding a job.

SC: How often do movie buffs recognize you in public?

SALACHI: People rarely see me in movies unless I've told them where to look for me. But I have been approached by strangers who saw me in the Lahey Clinic commercial.

I have had former students and friends I haven't seen for a while contact me to say they saw me in "The Great Debaters." I lucked out in that movie because they picked me to sit on the stage with the Harvard professors, but then the assistant director moved me to the first row of the audience sitting next to one of the principal characters in the film.

So, I ended up with plenty of face time in that movie. The make-up people were working on my bald head during every break in shooting, and that scene involved a 12-hour day, a 16-hour day, and then a 10-hour day.

SC: Where will you appear next?

SALACHI: It's hard to say.

As I mentioned, I've heard nothing regarding work for this summer.

I hope something comes my way, but if I don't hear anything soon, I doubt it's going to happen this year.