Here Is Some Advice For The Brand New Actor
It does happen that people get ‘discovered’. How often does it happen? To answer that question. Here’s another one. What are the chances of winning the lottery?
Getting discovered is like hitting the luck of the draw, so to speak.
On the other hand there is a saying I really like, which says:
“The more prepared I am, the more luck I seem to have.”
That said, if you want to really be discovered, you have to position yourself to be discovered. You have to work hard to build a base.
You have probably heard that it is a difficult profession to pursue and there is truth to that. If you have a method and a strong character, you can be successful. I have been in contact with young and older aspiring and new actors over the past few years and I was inspired to write a book for them.
Many successful people in different walks of life as well as successful actors have the following things in common or they do/have done them very well. It is my advice to you as well.
4 Key Areas
1. YOU: Get to know yourself better, your strengths, weaknesses, the opportunities you have, the resources you have at your disposal (and not just financial, but intellectual, skills, capabilities, talents, etc.)
Figure out what you want out of your life first (specifically). Figure out how acting fits into that. Then figure out what you want out of your acting career. (specifically) Doing these two things will help you save a lot of time, effort and maybe even money down the road.
2. YOUR ATTITUDE: Develop your creativity to invent ways for you to position yourself ahead of your competition and to find new ways to promote yourself.
BIGGIE! Figure out what it is that motivates you and learn how to keep yourself motivated to get done the things you need to get done and to help you deal with the rejection that you will inevitably encounter in this business. Figure out how to develop a strong sense of perseverance if you don’t already have it. There is much to do and you MUST be motivated or you will have difficulty.
3. YOUR PLAN: Put together a solid plan that will ensure that you will get to where you want to go in your actging carreer and have a real chance at achieving the success you want and stick to it. Learn how to plan effectively.
4. YOUR BUSINESS: Find out what the business skills you need to run your business of being an actor. You are an actor. You are a company. And you are a business. You are the CEO of that business. You are/will be a free lance professional. You have a product and that product is you. You have to know how to market it, how to sell it and how to create value for those who ‘invest’ in you.
There are short cuts, but very often, if you skip one of those steps, in the long run, unless you are lucky, it will slow you down and it just might mean that you won’t reach your goal at all.
So what could your next steps be?
1. Try to really understand what it means to be a working actor and start working on the things I mentioned above. Here are a couple of links to get you started, but I would advise you to get a lot of different perspectives of what successful and non-successful actors do in their daily activities.
2. And in the meantime, start taking acting classes. Study acting technique. Study. Study. And develop your SKILL. Without it, you won’t go very far.
3.Start boning up on the business skills you will need to be successful at promoting yourself as an actor when the time comes. I have seen many a wonderful actor, not get much work for this very reason. Not always the best actor gets the work!
Just wanted to give you some food for thought.
There’s a lot more where that came from.
Good luck to you!!!