We all remember that nervous-excited feeling we had when we walked into the office for our first agent meeting.
I don’t know about you, but personally, my first agent meeting was completely terrible! My headshots were bad, my resume was a bunch of filler and fluff that I tried my best to make sound impressive.
I was a nervous wreck and I’m sure that it came across.
In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have even been allowed to meet with the agent. Also in retrospect, I dodged a bullet that day by being passed up for representation.
Because most agent contracts have a 1 year term, that would have meant that I would have been signed with an agent that wasn’t fully invested in my success, and I would have been stuck with him for 12 whole months.
That’s about a decade in “industry” years.
See, over the years, I have come to learn that there are only 2 types of agents. There are agents that are dealmakers and agents that are deal takers. We’ll get into what that means and how you can identify what type of agent you have, in a moment.
For now, suffice it to say the first is good, the former can literally sink your career.
A dealmaker type of agent is one that will actively work for you and have a vested interest in your career. You and your agent will be partners in your journey to building a successful acting career: think Ari Gold and Vince or Jerry Maguire and Rod Tidwell.
This is the type of agent you need to have in your career, if you want to be a successful actor.
Here’s how to find an elite, dealmaker type of agent, even if you only have a few credits right now and no one knows you...
There may not be much you can do, if you are currently bound by an agency contract, other than to start your search for a new one.
It’s easy to get comfortable with an agent and accept the good with bad. However, if what you are after is becoming a full time, professional actor you can’t afford to settle for a subpar agent.
If your agent doesn’t greet you by name when you call, 99 times out of 100, he is not the one for you.
If your agent is not telling you about projects you won’t find in Variety, he may not be the right one for you.
If your agent asks you about how the audition went, chances are, he is not the right agent for you. If he doesn’t even call to go over the audition with you, he is definitely not the right agent for you.
An elite, first rate agent will know more about how the audition went than you would know, and he will get on the phone with you to go over next steps, even if it means that you go back to the drawing board, because things don’t look good.
Your agent should treat you as a professional and will not sugarcoat things to spare your feelings. They would be far more interested in seeing you succeed than simply playing nice.
This kind of “bedside manner” doesn’t sit well with many actors, but consider whether you would rather have an agent that is completely honest, even when it may be uncomfortable, or if you would rather spend a few more years at open calls.
Most actors can’t even wrap their mind around being signed to an A list agent.
They think that the only way to get signed by them is to already be a superstar, but that’s not the case at all.
Elite, top tier, dealmaker type of agents can be found everywhere, not just in a corner office at WME.
Here’s how you can identify, whether the agent you are meeting with is a top tier agent, climbing the ranks.
They should follow up on why did or didn’t get the job or why you were not called back.
They should actively recommend you to productions, beyond the dailies, and attach you to them before anyone is even called to read. Most actors think this kind of treatment is reserved only for A-listers, but remember that Casting Directors are people too.
CDs don’t want to start from scratch on every project, so if your agent actively puts you in front of them there is a good chance that you will be called in to read and be booked for the job, before casting even sees anyone else.
This requires that you have an agent that is fully invested in your success and totally committed to you.
Hard as it may be to accept, you have to be honest with yourself and determine whether your agent is willing to go to such lengths for your, or if you are just another headshot on their wall.
Top tier agents will deliver the news about an upcoming audition to you over the phone. This may be a 30 second conversation and the details will usually be sent via email or text afterwards, but top tier agents will take this an opportunity to fortify their partnership with you.
At the very least, they would have an assistant give you a call.
The industry is all about personal relationships, and top tier agents know this better than anybody.
Personal relationships are made in the real world, not through the dailies and this is why they are able to attach you to productions, before they even show up in the dailies.
Having a good contact turn into a bad contact after a subpar agent gets involved in the process, is way more common than you think.
One of the reasons I was compelled to write this report was because of the several accounts I’ve heard from our fellow BMS tribe members who took their futures into their own hands, made things happen, and then had everything fall apart after their agent stepped in to close the deal.
I call top tier agents, dealmakers, because that is exactly what they are. They go out into the industry and make things happen for you. Second rate agents will only take whatever comes their way for you, and that’s why they are the deal takers.
We tend to add a lot of mystique to the job of agent, but plain and simple, agents must go out and look for jobs for you, negotiate your contracts for those jobs and make sure that everyone sticks to the terms of the contracts.
They are skilled negotiators, so you don’t have to be one.
Rather than just accepting day rate plus 10% for you, they will make demands on your behalf. They don’t do this just to make you a bit more money.
Rather, they do it to raise your industry status.
The reason why contacts can sour or why jobs can ultimately fall through when a subpar agent gets involved is that they (the agents) tend to not fully understand their own place in the industry.
Agents carry you across the finish line when your audition was one of many that went great and casting still has some reservations about who to cast.
They must step in, allay their fears and ensure that you are the one booked for the role. You play a big part in this too.
If casting is nervous about whether you can handle the job, your agent’s words will only go so far. Help them, help you by giving them some tools to work with.
Here’s a great one that I created for you.
It’s still a very sensitive time for the industry. The public is still calling for people to be blacklisted and shunned by the industry for a number of reasons, so Casting Directors are more cautious then ever and will remain so for the foreseeable future.
Oftentimes, if your industry reputation is not up to standards, you won’t even be called in to read.
What’s worse is having an audition go wonderfully, only to have it fall apart after casting does their research and looks into you.
Here’s how I can make sure that things go well for you at this stage.
Agents are also becoming increasingly weary about new or unproven talent because of this. Remember, your success and their livelihood depend on you.
If agents have a roster full of actors whose bookings fall apart, then they are doing a lot of work for free, and nobody likes that.
It’s true that not having an agent is usually better than not having one at all. If you are stuck with an agent that isn’t working out for you, you can either have a tough conversation with them and ask them to tear up your contract, or you can simply wait it out.
No actor is an island and having a top tier agent in your corner is one of the keys to being successful in the industry.
Now that you know what a good agent will do for you, get your affairs in order and find one that is as ambitious as you are, so I can...
See you at the top,
Scott