How do you get a job as an actor?

Answer 1

With great difficulty.

Getting a job as an actor depends on many things including a lot of blind luck. Other factors can be talent, training, nepotism, and hanging around with theatre or film people. Some children are launched into an acting career based exclusively on their raw talent. Anyone who is lucky enough to get a start in an acting career will learn an awful lot on the job--they had better, as the world is full of child stars who became unemployable when they stopped being cute (Gary Coleman). Jodie Foster is a great example of a child actress who became an accomplished adult actress.

Most people don't have the luxury of being started in an acting career as children. The second-best way to get into the business is to be the son or daughter of an acting family. This way you will grow up knowing the right people and learning the right things to do and say. You will have an easy way in. Think Drew Barrymore here.

OK, so you don't come from a theatrical family and you weren't scooped off a playground and put into a movie. Is it possible to have a career in theatre? Yes, certainly, but here your ticket is likely training through school programs, university programs, or drama schools. Amateur dramatic groups can give you training, experience and get your face out there where people can see it.

It is sometimes possible to get into acting from modelling (which is even harder to be successful at) or winning beauty contests (harder still) where good looks are the main requirement needed by the casting director. It's hard to get a long term career in this way (but not impossible--think Aishwarya Rai).

OK, assuming you have gone for training, and in the process have met a lot of people who are also in the acting business. Now you want to get out there and act. Most young actors start with small companies made up of other young actors and play cheap venues, Fringe Festivals and wherever they can. Stage shows are cheaper and provide much more opportunities. As you get better, you start auditioning for small parts in more mainstream productions. You get an agent to help find you those parts. And you wait for a break.

If you really want to be in film, hang around film productions. Make some friends, and try to get yourself a job as an extra in the film. You may have only a second of screen time but you can put that on your resumé.

It is a good idea while trying to put on small and not very profitable productions or while hanging around film sets to learn some of the other skills necessary for theatrical or film production. Remember that for every person on screen, there are fifty off screen being paid to do makeup, or check continuity, or move furniture or bring the actors coffee. Having an offscreen/ offstage job around a film or theatre not only helps you to eat (something even actors have to do) but also gives you propinquity--you are near the action, and who knows when an opportunity might present itself. Harrison Ford was a carpenter just hanging around when George Lucas asked him to read the part of Han Solo with a bunch of people. The rest is history.

As I said, blind luck has a lot to do with it.