1. Understand your “type”
In school one learns how to play any role—to stretch,
to challenge, to grow, to learn, to adapt.Out in the real world, it’s very
important to have a clear sense of what is their strength when one walks into a
room to audition for a role.
This takes a lot of hard -work, soul-searching, and
asking friends, teachers, agents, and casting directors to give one some hard
opinions about their type, and their headshot should reflect that person. One
may very well be capable of playing many other kinds of roles, but one doesn’t
get them unless they first get the jobs they’re right for.
2. Initial years are very important
Acting is not for
the faint of heart. It takes a lot of hard work, sacrifices, dedication,
devotion and belief in yourself to even feel like you’ve got a hold of the
bottom rung of the ladder.
It is very important to be patient and wait for the
right opportunity for you to turn your skills to work.
Sometimes there can be a lot of disappointment
but do not give up on your passion.
3. Work on it everyday
If one wants to get through the first difficult years,
one has to work at it every day. If one leaves it to chance, they’ll always be
able to convince themselves that they have time to do those mailings, make
those calls, and read those trades “soon.”
One has to start by scheduling at least an hour every
day that they’re working on developing their network and scheduling their
plans.
Any day that you’ve done at least one thing for your
career is a good day. This includes auditioning, doing mailings, etc., but it
also includes working out, eating healthy, seeing plays, movies, new TV shows,
etc. Your job is to learn the business. It’s “learnable,” but you do have to
learn it.
4. Agents, casting directors, producers, and directors are here to
help
Yes, the whole manager, agent, casting director system
is set up so that many, many people have vetted you before you get in front of
the person who will actually decide to hire you: the director, producer, or
both. Remember it is always important that you nail it in the audition, then
everyone in that system looks good.
The director will trust the casting director to
present new talent. The casting director will trust your agent to pitch new
actors. Your agent will look to the school where you trained for new talent
next year. There is truly nothing more exciting in an audition room than when
someone you’ve never met before comes in and knocks it out of the park. Your
job is to be that person. It takes a while to really believe this, and keep
reminding yourself.
Also it takes some time to practice all these things.
5. Being a good person is just as important as being a good actor.
At a certain level, any one who has auditioned for the
part could do a good job in the role. It takes time to build a reputation. The
way you do that is by treating everyone with respect and trying your best to do
good work.
It takes persistence to have a life in this business.
If you really are going to spend your life as an actor, then the fact that the
first year or two was hard is a drop in the bucket.
Be on time. Be professional. Be thankful.
To learn the fine art of acting, explore the Film
Acting programs offered at Annapurna College.