Breaking into Acting For Dummies. Larry Garrison

instead, revel in the fact that you’re a “fresh talent with a different look.”

      Even worse than exaggeration is outright lying. Although people may stretch the truth a bit when creating a corporate resume, lying on an acting resume can get you in serious trouble in show business. If you lie about performing in a film, casting directors can often verify your claims by researching online or talking to people in the biz they know.

      One of the most popular show business websites is the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), which allows anyone to search a film or television production to find out about an actor’s, director’s, or producer’s previous experience. If you list a film or TV credit, make sure that it’s real, or else someone can easily find the truth with just the click of a mouse. Lying simply brands you as an untrustworthy actor, and if a casting director can’t trust you to tell the truth about your acting experience, why should he trust that you’ll be able to act in a role?

Casting directors are people, and most people respect honesty (even if they’re not always very honest themselves). If you lie and get caught, you’re liable to hurt your career worse than any amount of lying would’ve been able to help it.

Examining Sample Resumes

      Your acting resume should evolve as you train and gain experience in the biz. Just as you should update your head shot every time your look changes, you should update your resume every time you land another good role.

      

By tailoring your resume for specific roles, you can show the casting director that you’ve either done similar roles before or are fully qualified for the current role you want to be cast in. The goal of your resume is to highlight what you’ve done and exhibit all your special skills.

      This section takes a look at what credits you should highlight on your acting resume as a beginner, as an intermediate, and as a veteran actor. Use these samples to serve as a guide for creating your own beginner’s acting resume. Then, when you land that first big role, you can update your resume, using the intermediate actor’s example. Then, when you finally hit it big and are on the verge of becoming a major celebrity, you can use this chapter to put together your veteran actor’s resume. After that, you’ll be so famous that casting directors and producers will be knocking your door down to offer you roles, and you won’t even need to bother with a resume anymore!

      

There are no fixed set of rules for creating a resume. Use these examples to stir your imagination and creativity. The most important part about creating a resume is to make your resume look impressive whether you use specific words, highlight words in bold face or unique fonts, or rearrange your skills and experience so it appears you have the exact background and skills needed for the current role you’re auditioning for.

      Note: The sample resumes shown herein are included for demonstration purposes only and aren’t the actual or true resumes of the individual resume’s holder. Furthermore, the names used herein are fictitious and any relation to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.

      The beginner’s resume

      If you’re just starting out in acting, the hardest part of making up a resume can be figuring out how to fill up a blank page when you have absolutely no acting experience whatsoever.

      

Be sure to include any acting experience you have — no matter how small the part. Whether you performed a bit role in a community theater or appeared in a student film or a public access television show, that’s acting experience and you should include it on your resume until you can list something more noteworthy. Any type of acting job, however trivial, shows agents and casting directors that you at least have some experience performing in front of an audience.

Figure 5-1 shows Nancy Novice’s acting resume. Notice how Nancy uses a large (but reasonable) font size to fill the page with text. Also, notice how Nancy doesn’t have much acting experience, but she still includes minor work in theatrical productions as well as supporting roles in small films. Nancy’s resume does a nice job of highlighting all the performance-related training she’s received (including ballet and ballroom dancing — skills that may come in handy when auditioning for a part in a musical).

      

Every actor was a beginner at one time, so the lack of actual working experience doesn’t matter as much as the way you handle yourself at an audition (see Chapter 9). Even beginners can compete against veteran actors and land a role, especially in the film, television, theater, and commercial market where looks can override any acting experience you may (or may not) have.

      The intermediate actor’s resume

      An intermediate actor generally has at least one or two fairly impressive acting credits or a long list of minor credits that demonstrates you’ve been getting acting work on a regular basis.

      The resume for an intermediate actor is usually a combination of acting experience and training. The top portion of the resume lists your acting experience, and the bottom portion of your resume lists any classes or additional training you may have taken.

      © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

      FIGURE 5-1: A beginner’s resume must often emphasize training and special skills in lieu of actual acting experience.

Figure 5-2 shows a typical intermediate actor’s resume. Notice that an intermediate actor most likely has an agent and is a member of one or more of the actors’ unions. Also, under each acting category (film, television, theater, and so on) Ian lists his most impressive credits first because those are likely to catch someone’s eye.

      © John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

      FIGURE 5-2: An intermediate actor’s resume is often a balance between acting experience and training.

      As you gain more working experience, you’ll need to start trimming your educational and acting credits, starting with the less prestigious ones. For example, you may have taken both a television commercial workshop and an acting class from a famous acting coach. If you only have room on your resume to list one of them, which one should you keep? The answer is both and neither, depending on circumstances.

The veteran’s resume

      A veteran actor is someone who has plenty of acting experience and can afford the luxury of minimizing training skills altogether. A veteran actor often has impressive credits and a handful of lesser known credits.

      Unlike a novice’s resume, a veteran actor’s resume heavily emphasizes past acting experience in film, television, and theater. Training is still important, but when casting directors and agents see that you’ve spent the last five years performing on Broadway, in a blockbuster film,