The phrase "a background figure" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to refer to a person or element that plays a secondary or less prominent role in a situation or context, often in contrast to a main character or subject.
Example: "In the painting, the artist included a background figure to add depth to the scene without drawing attention away from the main subject."
Alternatives: "a supporting character" or "a minor player".
To begin with, Nora stuck to her pre-ordained role as a background figure.
She is both an industry veteran and a newcomer to stardom, a background figure and a ubiquitous force.
A man emerges from the darkness to speak with disarming honesty about his liberal political positions, but he's not Governor Morris, who is in fact a background figure.
"Born to be a background figure," he's the oddball hanger-on who craves acceptance and can never quite grasp why nobody likes him.
In 2011, Oscar-winning documentarian Errol Morris made a short film focusing on the "Umbrella Man" – a background figure, caught in the Zapruder film incongruously holding an open black umbrella that sunny day.
Although both musicians are white American men who are fascinated by far-flung cultures and sounds, Diplo has used his access as a platform for success and celebrity, while Hershey has remained a background figure.
In a movie that invites damaging comparisons with Fritz Lang's M, Berkowitz is a shadowy background figure with the foreground occupied by a fictitious group of macho blue-collar Italian-Americans who form a vigilante group and target as Sam-suspect an innocent punk rocker.
However, Khc::EGFP appears to accumulate in the cell bodies in a capt heterozygote which is not observed in a WT background (Figure 6 A B), suggesting that Khc::EGFP movement from cell body to dendrites is disrupted when Capt levels are reduced to half.
"Batfleck" was in the movie more than we expected, but always as a shadowy background figure until the mid-credits scene (more on that later).
At one point Mr. Nascimento had the audience moaning a spooky background figure as he soared above with his falsetto and his guitar: one special voice among the many, even now.
At this point in the proceedings, we're told, the nefarious Sith Lord will be a shadowy background figure whose standing in the nascent Imperial hierarchy is yet to be fully understood.
