Acting is a business just like many other professions. I believe that every actor’s journey should be unique to themselves, as it is about you and it’s your business. Every actor has their own story. Being an actor means being self employed, even if you have an agent. I personally have my inspirations. I look at some of the very successful actors in Hollywood and I look at their journey, but I am very much myself and I do things my way. I’ve been blessed with the amount of work I’m getting, especially as I haven’t got an acting agent yet. I lost my agents when I left Canada.
However, I would like to point out that I’m getting a lot of unpaid work in order to pad out my resume. I am also getting paid work, and have signed with two agencies, but they are modelling and commercial agents. I’m working on applying to UK acting agents at the moment, but I looking to present strong applications. Why present a mediocre application when I can produce an outstanding one?
When I decided to take acting seriously as a career, for some reason I quickly managed to meet many other actors. Before this, I knew absolutely no actors. A small number of the actors I initially met were/are doing relatively well, i.e. getting a lot of commercial work, auditions and even spots on US TV programmes. They are also new to acting so this is pretty good! Nevertheless, the majority were not getting as much work, or weren’t/aren’t even signed to an agent. I really don’t know why some do well and others don’t. I tend not to dig too deep into what other actors do to manage themselves and their business.
Initially, I was happy to give out advice to actors who asked for it, and readily gave out my phone number to any actor who seemed friendly enough. However, after two-three months of doing this, I now see that I was really naive. I understand that in this profession it is about who you know, but I’m also realising that you have to be really discerning about who you connect with in this industry. Acting is competitive after all, and unfortunately I have found that there are some people who will use your resources, and advice to build themselves up and knock you down. Like I said acting is a business after all, a very enjoyable, and fun business, but a business nevertheless.
Now when I get small parts which may be on TV, for example a commercial, I quickly hear from these ‘actors’ who never bother phoning me beforehand. They read my tweets, or facebook status (I really need to delete them) and then a day or two later I get a text asking me about how I got it. It frustrates me as I see through them and their motives. Dreams don’t work unless you do; that’s my motto.
Please don’t misunderstand me, I have some acting friends who I’ll happily help out because I like them and they just want a break. These people are different from the ones that have a motive to use you for what they can get, and then try to take you down. The ones I want to help out aren’t leeches. I would be interested to see how many actors have had similar experiences with these people. Maybe these types of people were responsible for Britney Spears break down in the 00s. Maybe.
London Biz 