A local extra reflects on the highs and lows of filming for 'Big Little Lies'.

Terry Glasco is used to her American Eskimo dog, Jolly Mon, getting more attention than she does. People stop her all over town to pet him. “Many more people know him than me,” she says. “He’s super famous around here.”

When Glasco, of Seaside, decided to audition as an extra for Season 2 of Big Little Lies, she brought Jolly Mon along – and both made the cut. One day, they showed up at Casa Verde Beach. They watched others partake in the scene, with surfboards and wetsuits, but were never called out to the set themselves, and instead just hung out in the car all day.

A better day for Jolly was on the set of Blissful Drip cafe, built on Lovers Point. “We just spent eight hours walking – four hours clockwise, then four hours counter-clockwise. It was really cold and windy, and I was so cold and so tired,” Glasco says. “But he’s got all that fur. It was the best day of his life and one of the worst of mine.”

One perk: Though the extras were instructed not to talk to the actors, Jolly got a shout-out from Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, who asked to meet him. “Reese said, ‘Jolly has the best hair on the set,’” according to Glasco.

He’s an advanced therapy dog and advanced trick dog, certified by the American Kennel Club for his abilities like jumping through hula-hoops and knocking over bowling pins on command. He’s made some 200 therapy visits to patients at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula and to special-needs kids on trips to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Jolly earned $45 per day, including the day he sat in the car, while Glasco, like all of the extras, was paid minimum wage. She is retired from a job in personnel management for the U.S. Army and now works from home as a web developer for PG&E, updating Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant information. A flexible schedule made it possible for her to dabble in TV life for a few days.

“Some people do it for a living. I cannot imagine a worse way to make a living. It’s just so boring – you’ve got to be happy to read a book for eight hours a day,” she says.

Glasco watched Season 1, but admits a good chunk of it was on mute, as she was mostly interested in identifying familiar locations (see story, p. 24). She plans to invite friends over every Sunday for Season 2, looking for herself but mostly for Jolly Mon.

Glasco also filmed a scene (sans dog) at the Marina courthouse, which involved a lot of sitting and waiting on hard courtroom benches, something she recalls only when prompted.

“I am so excited to see my dog in the show, I keep forgetting I had other scenes,” she says.