Breaking into Acting For Dummies. Larry Garrison

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three years ago. Note that in some instances you won’t be posting a resume but simply revising the information to make it current.

      No matter what your physical characteristics may be, eventually, you’ll find a role that’s just perfect for someone like you.

      Your acting experience and education

      Initially, you need to list every available acting experience you’ve ever had, just to fill up your resume. Eventually, as you gain more experience, you can selectively choose the more impressive roles and eliminate the less important or trivial ones, such as your bit role as a butler in a community theater or your appearance in a play put on by your college drama department.

      

Even if you have experience in television commercials, never list them on your resume. If your resume says that you once did a commercial for Hertz rental cars (even if it was ten years ago), another car rental company like Avis may be reluctant to hire you for its ad campaign. Instead of listing specific commercials, play it safe and just create a commercial section on your resume, saying, “Commercial list available on request.”

      When listing your film, television, and theater experience, include the following four items for each role:

       The name of the film, play, or television show you were in

       The role you played

       The type of role you played (lead role, featured role, supporting/guest role, or a recurring role)A lead role is considered a starring role.A featured role is a co-starring role, where you may have played a large role but weren’t necessarily the main character.A supporting/guest role is usually a small role where you had some acting and speaking parts (unlike an extra, who has no speaking roles whatsoever).On television shows, you may also have a recurring role, which means your character pops up from time to time in a few episodes of a regular show.

       The studio name, television network, theater, or director you worked for

      

If you played a lead role, you may want to emphasize it on your resume. If you played a minor role but worked for a major director like Steven Spielberg, you may want to emphasize your work experience with him with the supporting role you played. If you appeared in a particularly prestigious Broadway theater, you may want to mention that theater name inclusive of the type of role you played. In general, include whatever looks most impressive. Again, your agent (or someone else knowledgeable in the industry) can give you additional advice on what to highlight.

Under your theater credits, be sure to identify any roles where you were an understudy rather than the principle performer. Nobody will fault you for being an understudy, but people may get upset if your resume gives the impression that you played a major role when you really didn’t.

      

Be sure to include information about your college education if your degree is in an acting or performance-related field such as drama, broadcasting, or public speaking. If you didn’t major in an acting-related field, don’t bother listing your college history because no one cares if you graduated from Harvard or Yale in engineering or English literature. An education in acting shows that you’ve studied acting, but actual working experience beats education every time.

      Your knowledge of special skills

      Sometimes, an actor who knows how to juggle or can do different dialects lands a role simply because no other actor possesses the special skill necessary for that particular role. So in a separate section of your resume, be sure to list all the unique skills that you can do extremely well. Here are some common types of skills that may come in handy:

       Foreign languages: Only include this information if you speak the language (or languages) fluently. (Two years of high school Spanish doesn’t count.) Also, be sure to list any accents that you can do, such as a Southern or a British accent.

       Athletic skills: You may list skills, such as martial arts, sky-diving, juggling, skiing, fencing, gymnastics, horseback riding, or riding a unicycle.

       Artistic skills: Perhaps you can play a musical instrument, know how to create an ice sculpture, or have experience with ballroom dancing. If you can sing, list your vocal range such as alto, tenor, and so on.

       Unusual skills: This skill set can include pretty much anything. Some examples are shuffling cards like a card shark, trick shooting with a pistol, twisting balloons into animals, or impersonating a celebrity.

      In the world of theater, list your special skills selectively. Two of the most important skills to include (if you can do them well) are singing and dancing because those skills can help you get cast in a musical.

      Unlike theater resumes that should only list those special skills you can do on stage, film and television resumes should list all the unique skills you possess — whether it’s mountain climbing, pole vaulting, or alligator wrestling. You never know when any of your special skills may come in handy for a film or television role, so don’t be shy about any of your abilities.

Make sure that you can do those special skills extremely well. For example, if you only took one year of karate classes, you probably wouldn’t want to list martial arts on your resume as a special skill. However, if you’re close to getting a black belt in karate, you can probably get away with listing it.

Avoiding Resume No-Nos

      Your acting resume is meant to highlight your acting experience and qualifications, so don’t list anything on your resume that detracts from your acting career or experience. Here are some items to avoid listing:

       Your age: Usually give an age range with a span of about ten years. If you’re 65, but you look 50–60, you’re better off choosing what you look like.

       Salary requirements: Never do that.

       Career objectives: Everyone reading your resume already knows you want to act.

      

Many actors exaggerate their past experiences because they falsely believe that doing so makes them look more credible and professional in the eyes of a casting director. Casting directors know that everyone has to start out as a novice and that even the biggest stars were once beginners with no credits, too. So don’t be ashamed of how little you may have accomplished so far, 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 (

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