- Associated Press - Thursday, February 6, 2014

FARGO, N.D. (AP) - A 19-year-old Fargo native who was picked from among hundreds of extras to play a brief role as “Telegraph Boy” in the new World War II movie “The Monuments Men” came away with $160, four free haircuts and a pair of socks.

Connor Linnerooth, who is currently studying acting in Los Angeles, was attending school in Germany last year when the film advertised for 1,000 men to serve as extras. From there, he was selected to play an American courier who delivers a telegram to John Goodman.

“They said they needed an American-looking boy,” Linnerooth said Thursday, on the eve of the film’s debut. “What’s better than an American-looking boy, than an American boy from Fargo?”

Linnerooth is shown walking toward a statue in the film’s trailer.

The 2012 Fargo Davies High School graduate was paid 120 euros, or about $160 for the nonspeaking part. He was not allowed to keep the costume, which included a trench coat made for him in Los Angeles and then shipped to Berlin, near where the movie was filmed.

“However, I did manage to keep the socks,” Linnerooth said.

The film stars George Clooney, Bill Murray, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett and Goodman. It’s about a group of people who worked to save artwork and other cultural treasures across Europe during World War II. Clooney directed the picture.

Linnerooth said it took about a dozen takes to complete his role as a so-called featured extra. In the scene, he walks down a long hallway, up a set of stairs and delivers the telegram to Goodman, who plays a sculptor. Goodman “takes the letter, has a little smirk on his face and hands it back to me,” Linnerooth said.

Linnerooth wound up spending three days on the set. His scene kept getting pushed back so he received four haircuts along the way.

He also had a chance to meet and Murray, Clooney and Goodman. When Murray found out Linnerooth was from Fargo, the part-owner of the St. Paul Saints minor league baseball team brought up the rival Fargo-Moorhead Redhawks and said he had been to Fargo.

“It was unbelievable dream come true,” Linnerooth said.

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