PHOTOGRAPH BY PARAMOUNT / EVERETT

Do you remember the scene in "Men in Black" in which a woman gives birth to an alien baby in the back of a cab? Do you happen to recall the cab driver from that scene? Of course you don't. He was just a side character. But he doesn't know that—he plays the starring role in his life. I bet you feel that way, too. The simple truth, however, is that you may be a side character in a movie. The only way to be certain is to constantly stay on the lookout for these key warning signs. How do I know all of this, you ask? That cab driver was me. Boy, that was one spooky baby!

Your best friend's life is much more exciting than your own.

If your best friend is an average guy who just goes to work, has a pet fish, and spends a lot of time on the Internet, you're fine. But if he's insanely attractive, has a high-­profile job that he never seems to go to, and enjoys an excessively eventful personal life, you might be playing his best friend in a movie. When was the last time you went home? Do you even have a home, or do you just sleep in the bar booth where you and Matthew McConaughey always chat?

People around you never ask follow-up questions.

Do people tend to make plans to "meet you at that place" or "pick you up tonight" without ever discussing further details? Do you order beer by saying, "I'll have a beer"? If your coffee order isn't met with a minimum of three additional questions, you're definitely a minor character in a movie right now.

You feel like you exist in the background.

Do you and your family ever go out to dinner, and the whole evening is totally normal, but then this couple at the next table has a fight, and you feel, strangely, like the only reason you went to the restaurant was to be near this argument or maybe to make the restaurant seem less empty while the couple fights? You aren't crazy. You are just an extra in the 1992 TV movie "Crazy in Love."

Your past is a blank slate.

Try to remember college or high school. Nothing? Have you always been an adult scientist in a lab coat?

You are a flamboyant gay diva with a wild love life and a penchant for quippy one-liners.

You are probably just a normal flamboyant gay diva with a wild love life and a penchant for quippy one-­liners, or maybe you are a part of a rom-­com. There are other clues to keep an eye out for now: do any of your friends own a bakery? A cupcake place?!

Your conversations seem believable from a distance, but up close are total nonsense.

Have you ever actually spoken to another person?

You belong to an oddly casual police, military, or government organization.

Do you and your co­-workers have access to a huge armory, from which you are regularly invited to stock up on all the weaponry you desire, without having first completed any training or paperwork? Now that you think about it, is there any bureaucratic red tape at your job at all, or is it pretty much one hundred per cent action?

Your high-school classmates are sort of . . . off.

Do your classmates claim to be in their teens but look like they're in their mid- to late twenties? Is your entire school regularly participating in group dance battles? You're almost certainly in a movie about high school, most likely on the Disney Channel. If you're still not sure, check the numbers: what percentage of your peers is involved in the upcoming school musical? In a class of five hundred, there should be, like, four, five theatre kids, tops.

You don't have a name.

What is your name? Calm down! This happens to a lot of people when they realize that they don't have a name. Just breathe and allow me to refer you to a very informative documentary called "The Truman Show."