Have you wondered why some actors seemingly book just about everything they ever audition for, while everyone else struggles to make any kind of progress.
When I speak with actors, one of the topics that comes up just about every time is “how do I book more?”
As actors, we’re told that just having the opportunity to read for something is a great accomplishment and to make the most of it.
While that’s partially true (we’ll talk about which part is true in a moment), it doesn’t help actors build their careers.
Here’s why...
Because being an actor falls under the category of “art”, success isn’t always clearly defined. It should be as simple as booking the part equaling success and not booking it equals failure.
That sounds a little bit harsh, but when you look at it that way you actually have a way of figuring out what went wrong and how you can fix it.
If you want to be a professional actor, that’s an important skill to have, because any way you look at it, part of becoming a professional is booking jobs consistently.
But, before we talk about how to go about it. fair warning, there’s a lot of tough love coming your way...
When you don’t book something, you typically get a pat on the back and you hear things like “they went another way with the character, XYZ actor became available after all, etc.”
When you look at not booking a role as a failure, you can then look to see what happened.
You can ask yourself “why did they go another way with the character” and then work out why they didn’t go your way.
Was your interpretation of the character one dimensional?
Could that have been what caused them to go with someone else?
If that was the case, then you can work on making your characters more dynamic and improve your chances of booking your next audition.
That’s a very simple way to think about things, but you can see how this is much more helpful than a pat on the back and “you’ll get it next time.”
It does require you to have thick skin and look at things objectively and emotionless, but that’s part of being an actor.
The bottom line is that if the project went on without you, you have to know why.
The industry has changed and experience and even talent are not always the most important things. Casting Directors look at many other factors when booking actors.
It’s why we’ve seen so many Instagrammers and YouTubers cross over into the mainstream industry over the last few years. You might even remember that Kim Kardashian had a stint as an “actor” a while back. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether her involvement in those projects was talent related...
They have something to bring to the table that changes the dynamic with CDs. If you don’t have something like that too, then you will be starting from square one every time.
It will bring down your booking ratio significantly. Simply put, it’s the number of jobs you book for auditions you go on.
So, if you have a ratio of .5, it means that you are booking 5 jobs for every 10 auditions you go on.
You want your booking ratio to be as high as possible, because it means it means you are booking more often than not.
The biggest impact on your booking ratio is how selective you are about the jobs you audition for.
Something that is really hard for aspiring actors to get past is to stop going after anything and everything under the sun.
Sit down with your agent and talk about what you most enjoy working on. Come up with a strategy for how you can narrow the kinds of projects you audition for so you can focus on things that most closely align with that.
Actors tend to focus on just trying to book anything that comes their way. Really, booking the projects that are right for you, is not as important as booking just for the sake of getting another credit.
Here’s why...
When CDs look at your resume, having a slew of credits that are all over the place is not impressive. A scattered resume is a sign of being a desperate actor, yet it’s what most actors strive for.
I challenge you to do this...
Ask 5 actor friends for their resume. Don’t tell them what it’s really for, just tell them you are redoing your formatting or something like that.
Cut off their names, then read through each one. Look at their credits and see what kind of a story it tells about the actor behind the resume.
Chances are, you won’t be able to tell much of anything at all.
Their resumes will be a mashup of comedic credits, mixed in with credits for heavy dramas and everything in between.
When casting directors look through resumes, that’s the same thing they see: an actor that doesn’t have a specialty and one who will take anything and everything.
Why is that important?
When a studio invests $50 million dollars in a comedic project, are they most likely to trust an actor who does a little bit of everything or are they more likely to trust an actor who only does comedy and does it really well?
It’s kind of like seeing a heart surgeon vs a general practitioner. As a side note, the heart surgeon also commands fees almost six times higher than a general practitioner.
Most actors go after anything and everything, because they think that having a ton of credits will display their experience but having weak credits can also keep you from getting to the next level in your career.
That’s why following the traditional career advice can actually keep you stuck.
The traditional advice would tell you to keep plugging away, when things don’t go your way, when really you should take the opportunity to fix what’s broken in your career.
For example, if jobs keep going to actors who are better known, you should look into who they are and find out what you could have done to improve your chances.
Were they in a better position in terms of their social media?
Did their industry reputation make them more trustworthy?
If it was a matter of casting deciding to go with an actor that outperformed you during their audition, look at their past work and see what they may have done better. Judge their past performances objectively and see what their strengths are.
Is their timing and scene pacing spot on? Maybe their tonality adds another layer to their characters but it’s something you haven’t worked on in a long time.
Doing this can be tedious and even discouraging at times but it is one of the most impactful things you can do to help you build your career.
Remember, whatever is going on in your acting career, I’m always only a comment or an email away. I’m happy to help however I can because I truly want to...
See you at the top,
Scott
P.S. If you scrolled to the bottom of this, you’re probably the type of person who’s always looking for an “easy button.” That doesn’t exactly exist for your acting career, but this is the next best thing.
In this report we discussed how to book better acting jobs, more often, and how your industry reputation helps with that. So read the report before clicking the “easy button” so you have a better idea of how it all works.