There’s a fun piece in The Wall Street Journal about playing a corpse on TV, a burgeoning little corner of the acting world. Wannabe corpses do have to audition, but they don’t need experience, though casting directors may ask them to “lie on a sofa and demonstrate the short breaths required [of a corpse] on camera.†For their time, corpse actors are paid the SAG rate for nonspeaking parts, $139 for an eight-hour day, plus overtime, but they “make an additional $100 or so for wardrobe fittings and posing for still pictures of the victim in happier days, that is, while still living,†plus “extensive makeup or getting wet (which according to a SAG spokeswoman includes being “dumped in the East Riverâ€) earns an actor an additional $14 or $18 per day.†Apparently playing a corpse is so demeaning, actors don’t even put it on their résumés, but consider the perks: Gloriously creepy Christmas cards! [WSJ]