Become a Working Actor

This article will deal with working towards a career in acting, and increasing one's understanding of the entertainment field, with an emphasis on casting from the actor's point of view. In the steps below, some words will be in bold to facilitate finding what information you need.

Steps

  1. Make sure that you've definitely been bitten by the "acting bug": you know that's what you want to do with your life regardless of criticisms you may or may not receive from family and peers.
  2. Know your source(s) of income. Whether you have wealthy parents or have to earn a living, you will accumulate many expenses during at least the beginning part of your career. Get your finances together at the start of your career, so that you won't have to worry about it later.
  3. Research actor training programs with the intention of enrolling in one, whether it'd be a couple of classes here or there or a 2-3 year conservatory program. Remember, a prestigious institution is only as good as the instructors in them. It would be helpful to know whether the instructors are or have been working actors in the past. If you plan on enrolling in a 2-3 year program, understand that for the most part, that's the time you'd be sacrificing to improve your craft and chances are, you won't be able to audition for work outside the institution. Auditing classes here and there is a good way to get your feet wet. Vary your curriculum by researching good places to take Shakespeare, scene study, improv, movement, voice/speech etc.
  4. To help get you started some of the best conservatories are Circle in the Square, Stella Adler, The New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts, and William Esper to name a few.
  5. It's also a good idea, if you can, to try to have some idea of what you expect out of an acting school or teacher. Having more clarity about that can help you during the interview during which you are considering attending a school and during which the school is evaluating you for admission.
  6. Research good monologues that are right for you. A monologue is defined as "a long speech spoken by an actor in a play or movie." In NYC at least, it is extremely helpful to have a couple of these under your belt for when you audition (mostly for theatre and agent/CD workshops, TV/film auditions USUALLY call for cold/prepared reading skills). Worry more about the context of the monologue instead of the actual breakdown of the character. For example if the character speaking the monologue is meant to be a woman, but you feel from the text that that doesn't necessarily have to be so, go for it. You can always omit certain parts.
  7. It is helpful to have a binder filled with at least ten different monologues from different plays, with different types of characters. If the person you are auditioning for asks if you have another piece you can take out your binder and name a few pieces (just ask if they would prefer, dark comedy, comedic, dramatic, etc.). Also having some pieces from Shakespeare's plays is a must.
  8. If you are doing musical theatre you should have a binder filled with songs.
  9. In NYC places like Drama Book Shop or Samuel French (also in LA) are great places to go look for monologues as their staffs are largely comprised of theatre buffs and actors themselves, who often are more than glad to lend you a helping hand.
  10. Make friends with peers that you meet at classes and auditions. You never know how those connections can help you out in the future if you're in the company of the right people. If nothing else, it's great to have a support group. When choosing your friends, ask yourself if not only are they fun to be around, but also if they add value to your mission to becoming a working actor. There are a lot of negative people in the world who will drag you down if you let them. Stay focused on what you want. One way to do that is to surround yourself by people who will help you stay focused on what you want.
  11. Research good photographers in the area so that you can get good headshots. If you have a trustworthy friend who is into headshot photography, that is great too. Make a list of a few whose work catches your eye.
  12. Schedule meetings to have a short one on one chat with them just to get a sense of what their persona is like. It is important to have a photographer you feel comfortable with. Remember, you are choosing the headshot photographer, the photographer isn't choosing you, so make sure you ask the right questions during your initial meeting. The more relaxed and assured during your shoot, the better your photos will turn out. Good photographers range from $300 to as much as $800 for a session.
  13. Think about whether studio light or natural light speaks to you more and express that to your photographer. Make sure the photos look like you, and not a glammed up version of you. Color headshots, in general, are more popular now than black and white. Be careful of cheesy gestures like the hand or the fist on your chin. Costuming during a session is not recommended either. For example, if you want to show that you can play a doctor, don't get dressed up in a doctor's outfit and get that headshot reproduced, unless of course you're going out of your way to show how much of an amateur you are. Anyway, after the session is done and you take a look at all your available options with your photographer get one to maybe three of the photos you like touched up a bit and reproduced.
  14. Once you feel comfortable in your own skin, start auditioning for projects! Early on in your career, this will mostly consist of school/college plays, non-union theatre, community theatre, student films, shorts, low budget indie films. Those are all great things to get experience in if you don't happen to be bombarded by calls from the Law and Orders and Heroes ... which you probably won't be just yet. The two trade newspapers for these kinds of casting notices are Show Business Weekly (showbusinessweekly.com) and Backstage (backstage.com) but you can find other audition notices through nycastings.com, mandy.com, actorsaccess.com, as well as Craigslist from time to time. 85-90% of the jobs listed are unpaid, but hey ... in the beginning you have to gain experience and do what you love, right? Understand that auditioning for a project is a somewhat different beast than the things you learned about in scene study class. Over time, you will feel much more comfortable in the process. Outline your strengths and weaknesses. If you feel more comfortable reading cold for an audition than presenting a monologue, there is a reason for that. Practice your monologues more on your own time.
  15. Understand the general audition process. Once you submit yourself for a particular project that you happen to be right for, whoever is in charge of casting that project may or may not call you in for an audition. If not, do not be discouraged as it is not an indication of how talented you are. If he/she does call you in, congrats! They will either call you on your service/cell line (never provide a home telephone number on your resume), or email you. Usually, they will also let you know when to come in to audition by providing a specific time slot or letting you come anytime within certain hours of days that they are holding auditions. Be sure to know certain things in advance, such as when the project shoots, rehearses, opens in a theatre etc. Also, make sure you know what they expect from you during the audition, such as preparing a contemporary comedic monologue, or preparing sides that they may have emailed you. ALWAYS bring a few headshot/resumes to the audition, even if you submitted to them electronically. It's a good habit to get into for when you audition for "legit" projects.
  16. Work towards getting an agent/representation. The reason I say "work towards" is because chances are, finding legit representation will not happen overnight (generally, it's easier to have a commercial agent contact you, particularly if you're an ethnic actor). Real talent agencies can be found in a publication called "The Ross Reports" or "The Agencies". The following provides mixed results: mass mail headshots/resumes with cover letters to agencies. Since the increase in postage (now 97 cents to send a submission via First Class), mass mailing headshots can be an expensive affair. The cons of submitting unsolicited material to agencies is that you don't necessarily have the peace of mind knowing whether your mail has been opened at all. You have to remember that legit talent agents receive roughly 100 or more headshots a day! Make sure that your mailings are targeted and that you follow up. Casting directors and agents might not be interested in you right away, that's why you need to follow up every so often with news about how your career is progressing, recent work you booked, etc. Then one day out of the blue, you just might get a call. Just like with anything else, there are many different approaches. You have to find the one that works for you. [1].
  17. Another increasingly popular method of getting your foot in the door is going to specialized studios that provide agent/casting director workshops/seminars. Some of them are TVI Studios, One on One NYC, Actors Connection, Breakthrough Studios and The Network NYC. Los Angeles have their own companies as well, such as ActNow. These are basically glorified "paid auditions", and you must remember that for the most part, that's exactly what they are. Go in there with the mindset that you're not necessarily attending those to learn more about your craft, but to get seen and hopefully get called in in the future. Of course, it is not a guarantee of employment and most people who criticize these studios don't even realize that perhaps they're not in the right stage to be auditioning for agents and CDs, or they're simply just "not good enough" yet. The downsides of this method is that on a per "class" basis, it's much more expensive than to just mail a headshot to that particular agent holding the workshop (97 cent mailing vs. $30-$40 workshop). However, the pros are that you have the peace of mind and guarantee that you met the person as opposed to worrying about whether your mailing was tossed in the trash. Also, it's easier to make an impression in person when they can see your acting style, type, age range. Most of these workshops also allocate a few more minutes to each actor so you can discuss "what you've been doing lately" on top of you actually auditioning for them. Most importantly, it's excellent practice for when you actually are called in by an industry professional to interview/audition ... provided you can afford these workshops.
  18. One way of looking at these kind of institutions is, if a person is not getting auditions, not being sent out by her agent or maybe doesn't even have an agent and doesn't have many industry contacts or know how to get them, then why not, yes pay a little money and be sure to be able to see the people you want to meet?

Tips

  • Get monologues from reading lots of plays as well as scenes you watch in class. It's much more helpful to do that than to skim through a monologue book, where most of them are subpar and/or overused. When auditioning for someone, you don't necessarily have the power of context working on your side. Therefore, choose good contemporary material that doesn't require one to be extremely emotional in the delivery. Many novice actors fall into the trap of screaming or crying through their dramatic piece. This does not read well for casting directors because they haven't seen you perform the play, meaning they don't go on the same journey you do. Even dramatic pieces can be lightened up by adding a bit of humor in them.
  • Good improvisation (improv) classes are extremely helpful in the craft, in that they improve your listening skills and allow you to practice being "in the moment". Novice improv mistakes are talking too much in the scene, interesting things come out when actors listen to each other on stage. These skills will carry themselves over to your acting.
  • If you are planning to try to become a musical theatre actor you should take multiple dance classes and have a voice coach. The two most important dance classes to take are probably jazz and ballet. They both will teach you how to move in different ways. You need to be able to do different types of dancing for different musicals. Even if you do not plan on doing "dancing musicals" (such as Hairspray as opposed to Rent which has minimal to no dancing) you will still need to study movement.

Warnings

  • Be careful of overused monologues, for example, for men, this may be "I Hate Hamlet" or "Key Exchange". For women, it may be "Spike Heels". Don't use monologues from movies ... well, popular movies anyway. A monologue from say a deleted scene from a lesser known P.T. Anderson movie will probably be much more effective than Ben Affleck's monologue from Good Will Hunting. You will either fall into the trap of trying to play Ben Affleck, or the casting person will think so regardless of whether you're doing it or not. Don't put yourself in that position.
  • Extra work is a great way to learn the sense of how a film or TV shoot works and to understand the role the camera plays with regards to everything else on set. However, don't rely on extra work all the time. They may not necessarily hurt your career per se, but unless you're extremely lucky and one of the executive producers spots you from the crowd of background artists, extra work won't help you either.
  • Watch out for headshot photographers whose sessions cost $99. They probably aren't very good, but there are exceptions.
  • CD generally stands for "casting director". Many people mistakenly refer to them as casting agents.
  • With regards to auditions, casting people will most likely have pet peeves, most of which can be avoided by common sense. One would be surprised how many actors lack that very thing. Always go into an audition prepared. If you are given sides (one to several pages of your audition material) by fax or email, go in there knowing what you're doing, and be reasonably comfortable with the text so that your eyes aren't glued to the paper. Whatever acting choices you have made, be prepared just in case for the casting person to ask you to do a complete 180 if necessary. Afterwards, if they say "thank you", that is your cue to collect yourself and leave! Don't hang around to have a conversation about old times as they have other actors they have to see. Nobody likes the "smell of need", so just act as if the audition is just a part of your day, which is obviously important, but there is no need to freak out or lay it on thick for him or her. If within a reasonable amount of time you don't hear back from them, you probably didn't get the part and that's OK. At least now they know who you are if you impressed them enough. Move on to the next audition.

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