Building an acting career is not something that is suitable for most people. It’s a challenging road filled with uncertainty, rejection, and a lot more that most people are not well prepared to handle.
In fact, over the years I have realized that even actors who knowingly chose to get into the industry were not fully prepared to deal with what came their way.
The reason is that most of them do not fully understand what it really takes to be a professional actor and build a career.
There are skills you need to perfect, people you need to meet, and obstacles you need to overcome.
Most actors have a very narrow view of what they need to accomplish and that leaves many things undone.
It’s why so many talented actors end up getting stuck in their careers, unable to make the kind of progress they should be making.
Professional actors are the ones that are able to focus on multiple areas simultaneously. They build a wide range of skills that many actors ignore, choosing instead to focus a very narrow skillset.
If you want to build your career as a professional actor, you will need to develop important skills and talents. Here’s where to start...
Something I have seen happen over the years is that many actors are not targeted enough in their development.
Instead they take a scattered approach and simply take whatever classes or workshops are available at any given time.
That kind of an approach doesn’t allow you to build a basic understanding of adding depth to a character, so most actors end up delivering lines in a way that makes them sound angry, happy, jealous, or whatever it is that the scene called for.
Professional, talented actors work on pulling emotions into the character in a variety of ways because that is what makes their performances believable.
Here’s what I mean...
When you build a character that has sufficient depth, the emotions are obvious, and you do not have to sound like the emotion you are trying to portray.
It happens naturally.
To get to that point what most actors do is take classes or attend workshops that are focused on a particular genre and method.
It is often much more effective to start by working on the emotions themselves.
If you are working on a scene that calls for your character to be angry, how do you show that anger?
The way most actors approach the scene is by realizing what the scene’s target emotion is and then they make the character choices to play that emotion convincingly.
Your acting coach would then correct your choices and guide you towards what they perceive to be the best ones for the scene.
While that is a great starting place, most actors should be able to move beyond that relatively quickly.
The next phase is then character development, because when you have a well developed character, they will drive the emotions and choices.
That makes a huge difference.
It brings out intricacies in your characters and adds layers to your performances. It goes far beyond surface level choices of being “angry” or “sad” and it allows your character to operate on a completely different level.
Creating layered characters like that is something most actors think they master, but few actually do.
It is one of the most crucial skills to learn as you build your acting career and try to get to the next level.
The process is actually quite simple...
First you have to understand the character’s story and the motivations behind their choices, because that is what will shape your performance.
For example, if your character was talked down to by their parents and teachers while growing up, they would likely have a problem with authority.
Getting angry at a situation because it was brought on by an authority figure is a completely different scene than simply trying to portray anger on set.
The latter is very surface level and the former is a deep rooted insecurity that haunts your character.
So once you have that backstory completed, you have to look for the character’s conflicting choices.
That will be informed by their story arc, but every good arc has some conflicting choices where the character wants to do or be one thing, but a part of them wants to do or be something completely different.
Realizing those conflicting choices helps to add yet another layer to your performance.
Your character is now angry because of a situation that was brought on by an authority figure, but they are trying to keep their composure because they are aware of their deep rooted issues with authority and they want to move past it.
How would that inform your choices on screen?
Would your anger be obvious anger or would it manifest in passive aggressive behavior? That will be different from one character to the next and it will also be informed by the script and story.
However, you can use that framework to build characters that are far more layered than what most actors are capable of.
Of course what we went over today only helps if you are already in a place where you have enough opportunities to get on set and showcase your talent.
If what you are struggling with is getting enough opportunities to do that then, it may be more impactful to focus on something else first.
That’s what many actors don’t understand.
They feel as if more training will lead to more bookings, but that’s simply not the case. Many factors go into casting decisions and as you build your career casting directors tend to do some research before deciding who to move forward with. Be sure that what they find about you is up to their standard. Here’s how I can help with that.
Actors that rely solely on training typically have a hard time building their careers.
Building an acting career requires a holistic approach and there’s a lot more that goes into it than simply training.
I have seen many talented actors struggle to build their careers simply because they didn’t know how to get in the room.
I’ve also seen actors with far less training and experience build their careers successfully because they actively sought out opportunities.
We’ll talk more about how to do that another time, but to get started it can be as simple as making yourself highly visible to the industry where casting directors and industry decision makers are looking for talent.
As we have been talking about throughout this report, no single factor is the answer to building an acting career successfully.
So, over the coming weeks we will be talking about what all the major factors are and how they work together to help you build an acting career.
Before we get to that, start working on what we went over today.
If you have an audition or a booking coming up, do it with that character. If you don’t have either, then do the exercise with characters from your past.
Everything we will go over will build from that foundation, so take some time to work on it over the next few days.
If you have any questions about it, feel free to get in touch even if you just want to bounce ideas.
I am always happy to help however I can because I truly want to...
See you at the top,
Scott