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?
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.
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!
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.
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).
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, and as a recurring character on a hit television situation comedy, they’ll tend to assume that you must know what you’re doing with or without any training listed on your resume.
