Breaking into Acting For Dummies. Larry Garrison

commercial may take a day or more, while auditioning roles for a major TV show, film, or play can take several days to several weeks.

      

After viewing an endless parade of actors either personally or through video for each particular role, casting directors call back a handful of actors for a second look. They have the power to choose the actors they want to callback, but they don’t necessarily have the power to pick any one particular actor. Other people, such as the producer or director, make the final decisions about which actor is chosen for the role. In the case of TV commercials, a representative from the advertising agency may make the decision.

      After one actor has been chosen for a particular role, the remaining roles are often filled based on how similar an actor looks compared to the actor already chosen. For example, if a TV commercial has already cast a tall redhead for the role of the mother, the actor chosen to play her son will likely look like he could actually be her son and isn’t likely to have a completely different hair color and ethnic background.

      

Because many casting directors freelance, you’re likely to run into the same casting director over and over again, so be cordial. In the world of show business, people tend to have long memories. So if you treat someone with disrespect, don’t be surprised if, sometime in the future, they treat you with disrespect in return.

Agents: Your Door to Show Business

      In the world of acting, the actors are the commodity, and the agents are the sales people. An agent acts as a middleman between you and anyone who wants to hire you for your acting skills. (See Chapter 8 for more details about finding and working with an agent.)

      Agents can

       Help you find an acting job

       Negotiate your contracts (hopefully to get you as much money as possible)

       Make sure that you get all the money owed to you, even if it comes from a rerun of a TV show you did 20 years ago

      

Even the best, most powerful agent in the world can’t get you an acting job. The best an agent can ever do is point you in the direction of the people who can hire you for an acting role. Don’t count on anyone but yourself to get your foot in the door and procure the acting role. No one will ever work harder for you than you.

Personal and Business Managers: The Guiding Forces Behind the Scenes

      Agents and managers can help an actor find a job. Some actors have both a manager and an agent because it’s worth the commission to get more work. Here we clarify the two:

       Personal managers also offer career advice by mapping out a long-term plan to help the actor pick the types of roles that will (hopefully) increase the actor’s appeal.

       Business managers (who are usually accountants) offer financial planning advice and handle the actor’s money by investing it (hopefully wisely), saving enough for the actor’s retirement, and making sure that all the actor’s bills are paid on time, so the actor can focus on acting.

      Both a personal and business manager can perform invaluable services, such as helping you find an agent or helping you decide when to dump your current agent and who to choose as a new agent.

Be careful when you give control of your money to another person. Unscrupulous business managers often steal millions from their clients before their theft is discovered (if ever). In general, keeping control over your own money is a good idea.

Actors: The Talent in Front of the Spotlight

      The ultimate job of an actor is to perform onstage or in front of a camera. Sounds easy, right? It can be, but performing is only part of the actor’s job. Some of the other tasks that all actors must master include

       Studying and improving their acting skills

       Figuring out how to market themselves

       Knowing how to audition

       Being able to act reliably and consistently

      To even get a chance to perform, an actor first needs to learn the craft of acting, which can mean taking acting workshops, improv classes, voice lessons, or hiring an acting coach. An actor must be able to improve his or her acting skills so well that acting appears flawless and natural even though it may be artificial and rehearsed.

      Of course, developing the best acting skills in the world is useless if nobody knows you exist, so the second job of an actor is figuring out the business of acting, which involves reading trade papers to find out about possible acting roles, contacting agents and convincing them to sign you on as a client, promoting yourself, and auditioning in front of casting directors over and over again until finally landing a role.

      After an actor gets a role, the final job of the actor is to show up on time, perform, and listen to the director. As an actor, you bring a script to life and turn stage directions and dialogue into the illusion of a compelling story that others will want to watch.

      When one acting job is over, your job as an actor starts all over again with taking classes, marketing yourself, and (hopefully) landing another role, so you can keep learning and gaining valuable experience as an actor.

      

Knowing how to act is just one part of becoming an actor. If you don’t know how to act or you don’t improve as an actor, you may never land a role. Likewise, all the acting talent in the world is useless if you don’t market yourself to the people who can hire you.

Besides knowing how to act, as an actor, you should also develop these additional work habits:

       Be on time

       Be prepared

       Be reliable

       Be easy to work with

       Learn different accents

       Study different skills such as karate, singing, dancing, and so on (refer to Chapter 6)

       Be willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done

      

Show business has no set rules. You can break every rule in show business and still succeed. Likewise, you may follow the best advice and guidelines from the experts and yet never succeed at all. The best way to increase your odds of success is by possessing etiquette and professionalism. Etiquette means that you treat everyone with the proper amount of courtesy and respect. Professionalism means that you do your job as efficiently as possible to the best of your ability at all times.

Unions: An Actor’s Best Friend

      Because so many studios, producers, and directors exploited the desperation of actors in the early days of show business, actors banded together and formed unions to protect themselves. The various actors’ unions have increased pay for actors (including lucrative residual payments — also known as royalties — for reruns and broadcasts in different countries), protected