I had a chat with my agent today. He told me the sad tale of an about-to-be-former-client of his. This young lad in his mid-20s has almost exclusively been a musical theatre actor to date, with lots of bookings, but suddenly decided that he is no longer interested in musical theatre work. My agent sagely advised him that, while expanding horizons into legit work is fantastic, it would be folly to turn one’s back on a lucrative part of the industry in which one has enjoyed success.
The client replied that no, he just wasn’t into it anymore, and would the agent just please start sending him out for non-musical theatre projects, plus feature film and television. My starting-to-get-annoyed agent reminded the client that the client’s non-musical auditions to date had yet to yield so much as a callback. My agent further reminded the client that making this shift means getting the client into the good graces of a considerable number of casting directors and other industry professionals that have had little or no prior exposure to the client, a long-term process during which the client was unlikely to book much, if any, work. Neither the client nor my agent would make much money.
On the one hand I feel for the client’s situation. Most people go into acting specifically because they love it and are patently not interested in working a job they won’t enjoy, and that includes tedious acting gigs.
However…
The client’s first mistake was in refusing to take responsibility for his own situation. It would have been one thing if he had gone to my agent and said, “hey listen, for the last year I’ve been training hard in acting classes, finding and going out on my own auditions, booking student and indie films, and taking advantage of networking opportunities throughout the city to meet the big non-musical casting directors. I find as I’m getting older I have less interest in musical theatre work, and I want to start transitioning away from it. This is what I’ve accomlished so far on my own, now what can we do together from this point?”
His second mistake was to take an inflexible position. He essentially said, “effective immediately, and for reasons that are not up for discussion or negotiable, I want to radically alter the trajectory of my career. I want to throw away all of the hard work you, my agent, have done over the last few years to market me to the industry. Despite not being ready for it, I want to compete at the highest levels of a sector of the industry about which I know nothing except that I think the work there would suit me. I do not want to have to do anything whatsoever to make this easier on you– I expect you to do all of the work while I wait for the phone to ring.”
Paying dues, dear reader, is a long-term proposition. Unless producers are falling over themselves to offer you leading roles in feature films with high eight or nine-figure salaries attached to them, you are in no position to either be overly picky or expect anyone besides yourself to move your career along. Adopting such attitudes will at the least severely damage both your career and your professional reputation.
At worst it is career suicide.
