How Casting Directors can Jumpstart Your Career - By Rebecca Metz

THE SECRET TO GETTING ACTING WORK

The main thing I wish I'd known when I started is how much of the work of getting auditions was mine to do. It's only when I started paying close attention to what was casting, what I wanted to work on, who was casting it, and getting very proactive about meeting and staying in touch with those people that I started working.

Even now that I have good credits and a strong agent and manager working for me, I'm very diligent about postcards and maintaining a database of who I've met, when I last saw or contacted them, and who I'd most like to meet next. (I've actually started coaching actors on these skills, because so many good actors don't know how to market themselves.)

STAYING IN FOR THE LONG HAUL

I've also learned that auditions are not about the role you're reading for. They're about furthering your relationship with that casting director. Actors have no control over whether they get a particular role. Even if you out-act everyone else there, there a million other factors at play. All we can control is our own work,
and so that's all we should focus on. If you consistently show up prepared, conduct yourself professionally, and do good work in the room, that casting office will come to trust you, and that leads to work. Acting is a long-term career, it's important for actors to think beyond the immediate job to the long term goals - building
those professional relationships.

A COMMON BEGINNING ACTOR'S MISTAKE

Here's a biggie - too many beginning actors focus all their energy on finding an agent, and ignore casting directors. I think that's completely backwards. Agents are salespeople, and we're only attractive to them when we give them something to sell. Mostly, that means credits. And the way to get credits is to get jobs, which means getting auditions, which means knowing casting directors.

I think beginning actors would do much better to go to workshops (legit ones) regularly, ask questions, brush up their cold reading skills, and get to know and be known by casting. For those small starting roles, casting doesn't care if you have an agent. Rack up some credits - commission free - and THEN look for an agent.

THE IMPORTANCE OF A DATABASE

It's critical to find some system for tracking people (agents, casting, managers, directors, etc.) you've met and when you last saw/contacted them, people you want to meet, all auditions, and all
of your career-related activity (mailings, submissions, etc.). The more you work, the harder it gets, so find one you like and stick with it.

Beyond that, ask casting directors and agents for recommendations to classes, teachers, or schools. They know who is meaningful on a resume, and who consistently turns out good actors.

GETTING AN AGENT

How did I get my agent... Well, she was my boyfriend's agent at the time, and I would go in to pick up checks for the movie he was working on. She and I would talk about my work, and soon she wanted to sign me. But I got my first agent through a workshop, in a roundabout way. I did a workshop with a (crappy) manager and signed with her because I didn't know any better. A year or so later, one of the people in the management company left to head up the theatrical department of an agency, and asked me to sign with him.

My last role came through my agent and manager phone-pitching me, and because people know me now from a big role I did last year. But almost every role on my resume was from a casting director I met in a workshop and kept in touch with, often for several years. I'm a big advocate of casting workshops, as long as they're done in an informed, focused, targeted way, which includes staying in touch with postcards (4 or 5 a year.)