You should have more than just "intrigue", it should be a true passion of yours. As far as school is concerned, I grew up in Santa Barbara with Eric Stoltz and Anthony Edwards. They were in the Santa Barbara Youth Theater Group, driving to LA to do commercials and the "ABC After School Specials", all at the same time as going to high school. And they were getting awesome grades!
You could always try doing extra work to see if you like being on a set, etc. Central Casting in the biggest extras casting company, followed by Bill Dance Casting. You simply register with these places, and then you work. There is a huge amount of work for non-union extras, and just a small amount of union extra work. As a matter of fact, one can work every day as a non-union extra, but if you are a SAG member, it is much harder to get union extra jobs. This is because a given TV show for example, only has to hire 10 union extras, and the rest can be non-union. If you sign up with a "booking service" or "calling service" as they like to call themselves, you can literally work every day. But the pay is not much more than minimum wage for non-union, although overtime is usually the norm as well as "wardrobe allowance" and sometimes "mileage allowance". You also can get paid extra for using your car, pet, or props in a scene. There are many SAG members secretly doing non-union extra work simply because there just is not enough union extra jobs to go around.
You must live in LA (or within driving distance) of course, get a "Thomas Guide" map book, and have a cell phone and a car. But if you do your homework, you literally can work every day, no matter your experience or looks. You can be young or old, tall or short, overweight or underweight, some one-armed dude, or whatever. There is plenty of work to go around, and Hollywood needs all types of people. You don't even need headshots or a resume, they take a digital photo when you register with all of those extras casting companies. Just stick with the legit companies. There is a nominal $25 or so fee to register. Even SAG member have to pay a "photo fee" to register.
So there it is.
Don't take bad advice. Just register with the big extras casting companies and follow the rules of working as a fim/tv extra. As I said, I am NOT out to sell that book, you can do some research and find out all you need, but be careful as there are tons of bottom-feeders scamming people who want to work in film/tv as extras.
If you are lucky, you can even become "SAG Eligible" from doing non-union extra work, but that is a whole other long story.
Here is a link to HollywoodOS (the company that publishes that book "Extra Work For Brain Surgeons").
http://hollywoodos.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=37&Itemid=80 Peace Out,
Alan
PS AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) has jurisdiction over Soaps and Sitcoms among other videotaped and radio broadcast productions. This is a whole different story, and anyone can walk into AFTRA and join for about $1,250