PLANNING AN ACTING CAREER
The theatrical landscape facing an aspiring actor has changed radically since I first arrived in New York. That being the case, I offer the following guidelines for the new aspiring actor in 2010.
1) Learn the craft. Enroll in a good acting class. Get into a few stage plays. If acting on stage does not figure into your career plans, take a deep breath and do it anyway. There is no substitute for learning the basics, and stage is where you learn them.
2) If you are under 19 years old, your best bet is to get into a university that has a drop-dead wonderful theatre department. A broad liberal arts education is a tremendous asset for the professional actor. It is a truism that there is no such thing as a dumb good actor.
3) Regarding stage vs. film: Acting is acting is acting, regardless of where you do it. There is not a different kind of acting for film than there is for stage. The difference is in the limitations of the mediums. You will see a lot of advertisements in trade publications telling you that acting for film is a unique form of acting. Don’t believe it.
4) Be realistic about television. It is a sales medium, not an artistic one. If you make a career that is based on television, you will be in the sales business more than the acting business. The reason television shows exist is to deliver good-humored consumers to the commercials. The few “quality” programs on TV are generally not moneymakers for the networks. They are carried for the prestige factor.
5) Be curious and aggressive about new technologies. Performance capture, for example, is here to stay. The character Gollum in “The Lord of the Rings” was digital, acted by Andy Serkis and converted into computer code. There presently are no schools that I know of teaching actors how to work with performance capture, so you will have to be a pioneer. Volunteer, get onto the set so you can see how it is done. If I were starting out today, I would pay particular attention to the ways that live action film is merging with animation and the ways that multimedia is being used in the theatre. Look into video games.
6) Yes, get a good talent agent. But remember, talent agents are going to go where the money already is being made. They will not be focusing much on developing technologies, which is all the more reason why you should do it yourself. You do not need a personal manager until you have a career that needs to be managed.
7) Promote yourself on the Internet. Build your own website, write a blog, network on line.
8) Treat your career like the business it is. Make yourself a five-year plan. You should get up every morning and do something constructive to build your career. The worst thing you can do is sit around and hope that an agent or casting director will call you.
9) If you need to support yourself with a regular job, just about any job in which alcohol is served will pay better than a desk job. You are not going to be able to work a conventional coat-and-tie job and pursue acting at the same time. Your acting career must be your top priority, and you make everything else fit with that.
10) If you are ready to begin pursuing professional acting work -- that is, acting work that pays money -- you should seriously consider migrating to New York, Los Angeles or Chicago because that is where the most acting work can be found.
Until next month...
Be safe!