“Marketability” is a word that comes up often in my work as a career coach.  This is due to the two-faced nature of the life of a professional actor.  Yes, we are artists.  But because we seek to ply our craft in other people’s projects, we also have to be business people.  If you’re marketing plan is to shell out a few hundred dollars on a picture and tell anyone that will listen that you’re a really good actor, well, you might as well save your money and your breath.  That’s no more a good marketing strategy than buying lottery tickets is a good investment plan.

Being business savvy is therefore clearly important.  Part of that savvy is recognizing and developing your own potential.  Which actor is more marketable:

Actor A has excellent presence in contemporary work, especially for film and television.

Actor B is a triple-threat.  She can act, sing and dance.  She’s equally at home in Shakespeare or primetime drama, on a stage or in front of a camera.

They’re both really good actors, but Actor B can successfully work in many, many more mediums and formats than Actor A.  She will therefore get more auditions, and if she’s as good as she’s supposed to be, that means she’ll work all the time.

What undeveloped potential resides in you?  Could you book classical work if you just bothered to spend a few months in an outstanding Shakespeare class?  Would musical theatre doors open for you if you invested in a year of vocal coaching?

Working sometimes is great.  Working all the time is even better.  But nobody’s going to hand it to you on a silver platter– if you want it, you have to go out and get it!

Hello true believers!  I’m exhausted.  Today is my day off from rehearsals on my new show.  To celebrate I got up at 3:45am to make it to a 6:30am call to shoot two groovy scenes for one of New York City’s hit primetime television series.

So much goes into a location primetime television shoot that I could probably fill up several blog posts about it and I have a feeling that’s exactly what’s going to happen.  Right now today, while I can still move my fingers, I want to concentrate on just on the on-set experience.

If you’ve never had the pleasure let me assure you– a shooting set is the absolute furthest thing from an ideal place in which to practice the art of acting.  It’s noisy, crowded, and everything happens at warp speed.  While the makeup professional dabs your face the director is changing your big line and the cinematographer asks you to turn your face into the light and the cameraman nudges your leg over.  The A.D. is ripping up your old spike mark and putting down a new one.  The producer wants to know what’s taking so long and the last two takes were ruined because a helicopter flew over or a Coast Guard boat flew by in the background and ruined the continuity.  The stuntwoman in the water playing the dead body can’t hold her breath any longer and the sun is going to come out from behind that cloud in 30 seconds and ruin the lighting so this is the absolute last take.  If you screw it up, you won’t be back again.

Ready?

Folks, this stuff is really, really hard!  You have to be on your game to succeed in this kind of environment.  I envy the series regulars.  When the environment I just described is your daily workplace I imagine you adjust to it.  For the rest of us, our only hope is to just flat out be the best we can be.  The necessary level of skill and confidence only comes through training– lots and lots of training.

To do less is to not take the profession seriously.

Today I conducted the second part of an exhaustive course at TVI Studios on type as it applies to actors and the acting industry.   From experience, I know this to be a delicate topic with many actors.  We are naturally abhorrent at the idea of drawing boundaries around our work and recoil when somebody suggests that we limit ourselves in such a fashion.

We would like to believe that as trained artists we are capable of a broad range of roles.  And the truth of it is, we are.  Unfortunately, however, most industry professionals (producers, directors, casting directors) aren’t particularly interested in  our range.  These people tend to be very focused on the project they have at hand.  They want to find actors that fit each role perfectly.   Let me give you a personal example of how these two perspectives (ours and theirs) clash:

I used to audition for “The Sopranos” on a fairly regular basis.  The casting directors there liked me and liked my work.  Unfortunately, most of the roles that fit my age range were attitudinal young men with strong “street” looks and accents to match.  The scripts called for either sleeveless leather jackets and slicked-back hair, or for gaudy pinstriped suits and wide ties.  The characters usually threatened people.  Sometimes they subsequently killed them!

Am I capable of performing well in one of these parts?  Absolutely.  The problem I ran into was that every time I went in on one of the above-described roles I would sit in a waiting room full of actors that, quite frankly, were in real life almost exactly like the characters!  (minus, I hope, the homicidal urges).   Who do you think had the competitive edge in those situations?  I’ll give you a hint– “The Sopranos” is not on my resume!

“Type” is about identifying the most marketable version or versions of yourself, and then concentrating your marketing efforts towards those roles.  It’s about understanding that industry professionals are more interested in solving their immediate problems than in heaping praise upon you for your broad range.

I help my TVI members and our program students identify and aggressively market for their type every day.  If this is an issue you have yet to address in your own career please contact me so I can help you too.

I’ve just this week learned that one of my friends is about to live the dream—he is earning enough income from his acting work to live exclusively on it, and as a result he is able to leave his survival job. It’s a major accomplishment. Remember that I define success as precisely the ability to earn a living just from your acting income. Anything beyond that is gravy!

I’ve known this man a long time. He is gorgeous and incredibly talented (we have studied together extensively so I am very familiar with his abilities as an actor). However, he has been in New York for a long time—nearly a decade—and has only arrived at this exciting threshold through hard work, on-going investments in his career, and an admirable dedication to the long-term view.

I stress this because lately I have been inundated with a frustratingly high number of meetings or phone conversations with persons looking for shortcuts to success. These are people that want to spend a few hundred dollars and about a dozen hours and have something major come from this minimal effort—a role on television, or in film, or a contract with an agent or several agents.

These are folks that take themselves very seriously, which can be a good thing, but they don’t take the industry seriously, and that is deadly. You should believe in yourself. You should feel quite strongly that you deserve to be a working actor, because you do. You should be hungry and you should be seeking out every possible edge and advantage. But you also must take the industry seriously. You need to understand how it works and why and then make smart choices to improve your chances and move your career closer to where you ultimately hope to be.

Just believing in something passionately is not enough to bring about the opportunities you seek. You have to act on those passions and beliefs. Talk is cheap. Actions are much louder than words. Only when we are actively engaged with the industry, really doing things on a daily basis, can we begin to make real progress.

I am excited for my friend. He’s worked hard for a long time and now his acting and his business savvy are strong enough to support him. I know that the extra time he will have will be re-invested back into his career. I know that he will continue to challenge himself to improve, just as he has done all along. I am excited for him and also for myself and anyone else that conducts the development of their career by respecting not just their own abilities but also the realities of the industry.

On a similar note I have some additional news for you this week.  I’ll be going out-of-town to originate a role in a new play being produced at a major regional theatre in Florida.  Working on new plays is what I love most about the theatre and I am very excited for this “gig.”  Unfortunately, however, the nature of the job will most likely prevent me from making my regular updates here at EB.  I therefore leave you in the very capable hands of my guest writers, who will introduce themselves in short order.

And don’t worry, true believers– you haven’t heard the last of me!

Report from the trenches: (2 of 2)

I’m starting to hear rumors that the WGA strike may end soon.  However, residual effects could linger for who knows how long, especially with a SAG strike looming in the summer. NBC canceled all of their pilot orders a week after CBS and Warning Brothers / CW pretty much did the same. None of the networks have announced an alternative plan to fill their programming so advertisers are holding their breaths about new ****aigns—meaning the next sector of the industry to suffer could be commercials.  If the WGA strike lifts hopefully the networks will rush to restore their scripted content.  But if the networks are sour on writers after the revenue losses incurred by the strike, and wary of the SAG contract expiration, they might be reluctant to forge ahead with another pilot season.

Last week I described the “trickle-down” effect a strike like this can have on professional acting opportunities.  The short of it is, jobs become scarce.  So what can we do in a time like this?

First, you have to go easy on yourself. If you were auditioning and/or booking often prior to the strike, and now the well is dry despite your continued due diligence in finding and submitting on auditions and following up with your industry connections, you have to accept that this is just the way things are going to be for a while. Making radical changes to your processes or launching major initiatives to find representation or expand your contact list will have no positive short-term effects and might just drive you bonkers. By all means continue submitting—you never know what might happen!—but this is a good time to focus on some goals that are less contingent upon the fickle ups and downs of the industry.

First, and regular readers will find this no surprise, this is an excellent time to train. I just signed up for a six-month workshop with one of my private coaches. SIX MONTHS! I figure I might as well make myself better and more marketable if I have to sit on the sidelines. When things heat up again I’ll be that much better able to compete.

Second, you can turn your unwanted spare time into money. Get another part-time survival job and save some bullets. If you are frequently unable to train or pay for networking opportunities this is a perfect opportunity to save up some resources for later. If the strike goes on, and if SAG does indeed strike this summer, we could be looking at a slow industry for months.  You could amass a considerable war cest during that time!

Third, you can address major personal initiatives. One of the hardest things about being an actor is the constantly being “on-call.” Going out of the city for even a long weekend can easily mean a major missed opportunity, particularly during a busy time of year. So if you want to take that big vacation, or backpack across Europe, or visit all the baseball stadiums in the land, or audit a few classes at the local university, or buy a co-op in Forest Hills, well hey—go for it!

Finally, as I’ve recently written about, you can create your own opportunity. Get a play-reading group together. Write something and rent a cheap space for a limited run of performances. Shoot some sketch comedy pieces and post them on YouTube. The professional opportunities may have run dry but that creative well within you is still flowing, and you neglect it at your own peril.

You can do it, true believer. Turn those strike lemons into MARGARITAS!

Today I received an email from a curious party asking how she can get in touch with an agent.  Since questions about representation come to me about a dozen times a day I think it’s high time I address the topic in some detail.

First, a disclaimer.  Many people believe that an agent is the single most important component to a successful acting career.  This belief is fueled by the popular media and reports heard through friends of friends of would-be actors.  The belief usually goes something like this:

“If I can just get myself an agent all of the difficult problems associated with navigating the business of acting, which I don’t entirely understand, will go away.  The agent will take care of everything.  He or she will make all the right people believe in me and take me seriously.  When I have a problem I will call my agent and he or she will solve it.  If I want to be in a certain movie or on a certain television show or in a particular play I will tell my agent and he or she will make it happen.  Until I have found my agent I will have no career and will be powerless to create one, so my top priority, my only priority, should be to find one.”

Part of the reason that this belief is so popular is that it takes all of the pressure off the actor.  Think about this closely because it’s very important.  If indeed some magical entity exists that can open any door for your career then, obviously, obtaining a relationship with this entity would indeed be extremely desirable.  What makes this belief a fallacy, however, is that NO SUCH PERSON EXISTS.  Agents are not all-powerful beings that can make or break careers.  Many successful actors do not have, or have ever had, or even desire to have, an agent.  Conversely, Many unsuccessful actors have been represented for years and years but have gone nowhere.

This is because it’s not the agent that’s important, IT’S THE ACTOR.

I’ll back up my claim.  Here is a very simple description of how a project gets cast:

The producer in charge of the project hires a CASTING DIRECTOR (CD).  They talk about the various roles that need to be cast and the qualities of each character.  The CD puts this information into a BREAKDOWN and releases it to all the agencies in the city.

AGENTS read through the breakdowns and compare the descriptions on it with the actors they represent.  If there are matches the agents compile a SUBMISSION and send it off to the CD.

The CD and his or her associates and assistants go through the many submissions.  They pull out the actors they feel might be good fits, call up the agents of those respective actors, and schedule audition appointments.  Only a certain percentage of the actors that are submitted receive an appointment.  Usually these are actors that the CD is already familiar with although exceptions will be made for actors that have extensive experience and appear to be right for one of the parts.

If an agent feels that a particularly well-suited client has been unfairly overlooked he or she will call the CD, sometimes multiple times, and try to get that client an audition appointment.  The agent’s success will depend on how many extra appointments are available and the strength of his or her relationship with the particular CD.

If you’ve been paying close attention you will see that the real decision-maker in this part of the casting process is not the agent but the casting director.

Actors that have developed excellent reputations with lots of casting directors audition frequently whether or not they have an agent.  Actors with few or no relationships with casting directors rarely get seen for anything no matter who or how powerful their agent is.  Because of this, agents are interested in representing actors that have established a track record on their own of booking jobs and already have good relationships with many casting directors.  This is for the simple reason that such actors are the most likely actors to book more work and make money.

Most agents leave some space on their client roster for “developmental clients.”  These are usually newcomers to the industry that the agent feels are particularly marketable because they possess a high level of talent and a certain look that often comes up in the breakdowns.  When an agent signs a developmental client the understanding is that the agent will work hard to get as many doors open as possible, AND the actor will will work hard on his or her own to do the same thing.  The goal is not to book work right away but instead to establish a long list of casting directors that think the actor is good.  The agent AND the actor are working together so that the actor can eventually reach a highly competitive position within the market.  Success depends on how hard BOTH parties are willing to work to arrive at their goal.

Unfortunately, a frightening number of talented young actors are lucky enough to find representation as development clients despite not being aware of the responsibility they have towards the ultimate success or failure of the relationship.  These actors are usually under the spell of the false belief I exposed in the disclaimer to this article.  As time goes by and nothing happens they get frustrated.

My bottom line is this: the best way to find representation is to demonstrate you don’t need representation.  Be as good as you can be, book work on your own, and establish glowing reputations with as many casting directors as you can.  If you can do this you will find that the agents come to you!

If this article doesn’t make sense to you then I would like to as politely as possible suggest you may stand to benefit from career coaching.  Please call me at TVI Actors Studio in New York and we can chat!

This will be a short but sweet update.

I was about to pull the trigger on a class with a major casting director with whom I have long wanted to establish a connection. But then something wonderful happened– I booked my next job!

I have developed a general rule that basically states I want to have something happening for me at any given time. The worst thing I can do for my career is nothing whatsoever. If I’m not working I’m training. If I can’t afford to train right now I’m working extra shifts at additional jobs so I’ll be able to afford it later. If I’m tired of training then I try to expand the number of casting director or agent contacts I have. If I’ve become disillusioned with the industry and “playing the game” then I create my own opportunity– a short film, maybe.

What’s great about my little rule is I never feel anymore like my career is going nowhere. I quite literally always have something in the hopper. More and more I find myself having to push back something to accommodate a booking. I feel like I’m in demand! This is enormously helpful in terms of my personal attitude and outlook. Once upon a time when I was totally dependent on the “waiting to be picked for something” system each audition carried with it lots of pressure. After all, if I didn’t do well I knew it meant more time sitting on my couch in a depressed funk waiting for the phone to ring.

But now that I always have something happening that pressure is gone. Rather than go into an audition desperate for approval (and work) I go in confident with the knowledge that even if this job doesn’t pan out something else is waiting for me.

Something funny happened to me two weeks back. I got a call from my agents that CBS had requested to see me for a new sitcom. The reason I found this funny is that my last pilot season was a lonely one– all of my industry attention was from theatre and film, and none from television. It’s not an uncommon experience, especially for New York actors, but hey– I want to be on TV as much as the next guy!

So what was CBS doing casting a new television series at a point on the calendar about as far from pilot season as one can possibly get? The answer is the title of this post. Before I explain further let me first give you some background.

Big parts on television shows are known as “series regular” roles. For example, the six actors that comprised the friends on “Friends” were the series regular roles for that show. Everybody else was at best a “recurring” character, which means a big part that appears in more than one episode, but not all of the episodes. Tens of thousands of actors thirst after a series regular role for very obvious reasons.

When a new television show is born only a single episode is created. This is called the “pilot” episode. When the pilot is cast the series regular roles are filled. Everybody involved works as hard as they can on the pilot in the hopes that the finished product will please a network and get “picked up.” Most pilots never make it that far. The lucky pilots that do receive an “order” from a network, usually for either a half season (13 episodes) or a full season (26 episodes). At this point the show goes into full production, churning out episode after episode. As each new episode is completed it airs and then the network assesses how the series is doing in the ratings. If it’s doing poorly the network will usually cancel the rest of their order. If the series is doing well the network will try any number of things to make the series more effective such as, for example, moving it to a more desirable time slot.

All television series eventually get canceled. The only question is how long the series lasts before this happens. Most get canceled within nine months of being picked up.

When a network cancels an episode it is left with a gap in its broadcast schedule that it must fill. So the first definition of “mid-season replacement” is a show that gets a green light because another show bit the dust. When I went in to CBS two weeks ago it was to audition for a role in what the network hopes will be a mid-season replacement. Clearly some other show they had pinned their hopes on was going to be cancelled and now they were going to Plan B.

Sometimes when a network views a pilot it decides to tweak the show before picking it up. Often, and regrettably, this involves replacing some of the actors from the pilot with different actors. The new actors may be celebrities that the network hopes will draw in additional viewers, but not always.

Occassionally these tweaks get made only after a series has started to air. Generally when this happens the series is already in the jaws of cancellation and the network is merely delaying the inevitable. But whatever the reason, this is the second meaning of mid-season replacement!

Sorry I’ve been out of the picture for a while, true believers, but as some of you know I am at present gainfully employed in a regional theatre production. Happily the theater is close enough to the city that I am able to commute. I also have the pleasure of working with a celebrity, and I am pleased to tell you that he is as nice and friendly and professional as they come. We’re having a great time.

One of the things that I have pondered during the rehearsal process for this show is how often, even in theatre, “it’s not about you.” I have many times heard film and television actors– usually ones that have transitioned from theatrical careers– bemoan the fact that a shooting set is amongst the most hostile settings in which to practice our art. Between the camera and the lighting and the special effects sequences and the army of technicians and crew people it always seems as though the absolute furthest thing from the director’s mind is assisting his or her actors as they attempt to ply their craft. Too often in those very difficult situations all of the responsibility for a performance falls squarely on the actor’s shoulders. Nobody is really there to help you, because, as I’ve already quoted, “it’s not about you.”

This means that you are expected not just to have the highly polished acting skills to go it alone but also the confidence to step right up and deliver when called upon to do so, despite the numerous obstacles that can be counted upon to be present. Whenever I think about how insanely difficult the pursuit of steady film and television work is I have to remind myself that part of the reason is that the industry needs to weed out the folks that just can’t hack it in a stressful environment. An actor that isn’t ready that somehow finds him or herself on a set and unable to deliver the goods could cost a production tens of thousands of dollars in lost productivity. It’s not a risk any producer I’ve ever known has been willing to take.

So how does all this apply to my little play? Well, I’m involved in a pretty ambitious production from a technical perspective– lots of important effects elements that must be mastered. It’s also a big show in terms of length and the amount of different settings required. More than half our entire rehearsal period was spent just on blocking. Because we must establish a rhythm from one scene to the next, lest we lose our audience’s interest due to lag time between scenes, we must drill the transitions over and over again until each scene blends perfectly into the next.

The unfortunate byproduct of all this completely necessary leg work is that very little time is left over for actual exploration of the acting. Worse, the time we have found for this process work is mostly going towards the aforementioned celebrity– as well it should be! His presence is the reason most of our audience will come see us and we want to make sure his scenes really soar. As far as I’m concerned he can have all the rehearsal time he and our director want.

The bad news, however, is that when it comes to the more involved aspects of putting together a performance I am pretty much left to fend for myself. I cannot, for example, depend on getting the time I need in rehearsal to craft any of the highly emotional moments my character endures, such as when I have to cry. I guess I could fake it and then complain loudly that I was never given the resources necessary to succeed, but you know what? When all is said and done it’s my butt up on the stage and if my performance is sub-par I will be the only responsible party. So I do as much of the work as I can during rehearsal and then all of the rest of it I fill in on my own. Honestly, this is not the first time I’ve been down this path, nor will it be the last.

The lesson that I want you, dear reader, to take from all of this is that acting is not magic and you can’t always depend on other people to help you through it. Acting is a process which you must master if you are going to consistently find professional work. I don’t want to scare you– you can do this, I promise you!– but I want you to understand that you can’t approach a professional job as a blank slate eager to be filled in by the contributions of others. You will be expected to arrive on day one as an active collaborator with good ideas of your own, and then you will be further expected to work hard outside of rehearsals to craft the majority of your performance.

Highly trained actors can do this without much fanfare and that is the bottom line. This is how they make it look like magic. If you want to be a professional you need to have this ability. For almost every actor out there this means that you need to be highly trained.

“Type” is such a dirty word amongst actors. If you haven’t encountered it before, “type” refers to a usually narrow description of roles that an actor can play particularly well and is cast in often. You might be a loving grandmother type, or a young hunky leading man type, etc. Many actors become terrified that if they become strongly associated with a particular “type” they will suffer through a monotonous career of one cookie-cutter role after another. Alas, sometimes this does happen.

But type doesn’t have to be all bad. Some savvy actors can figure out the kinds of roles in which they are particularly marketable and then ride those jobs in the early parts of their careers. Once they have become established, and have significant contacts and other resources at their disposal, they can start breaking out of their type and into other parts. We see this sort of thing all the time. When “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” came out, for example, who would have thought that Sean Penn would someday be nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of a severely autistic man in “I Am Sam?” Did anybody see her role in “Monster” on the horizon when Charlize Theron co-starred with a computer-animated gorilla in “Mighty Joe Young?”

How we start out does not always indicate how we are going to end up!

Last week Alice Ghostley of “Bewitched” fame passed away (the original television series, not the Nicole Kidman movie remake). In 1990 Ghostley gave an interview to The Boston Globe about the early days of her career. Here is an excerpt:

“I knew I didn’t look like an ingénue. My nose was too long. I had crooked teeth. I wasn’t blond. I knew I looked like a character actress. But I also knew I’d find a way.”

I believe it vitally important for professional actors to understand exactly how the industry perceives them. If you don’t like the way you are seen and want to fight against it that’s your choice, but you at least have to know exactly what the perception is that you are fighting against! Only then can the work begin—either pursuing opportunities within your type, or making the adjustments in your approach to finding work that will be necessary to develop a new dimension for your career.

I have over time developed a series of type exercises that I find extremely helpful in understanding how I fit, and don’t fit, into the industry. I assign these exercises all the time to my members. To learn more, please contact me at TVI Actors Studio in New York City.