Acting As A Career:
Interview with Acting Career Coach
Janice Hoffmann Part 1

How To Get Started With Acting As A Career

About a year after I had decided to consider acting as a career, I had already been studying the craft, but I decided to dedicate myself to it fully for a period of six weeks. I took a six week intensive at the Ward Studio in NY, which helped me make a quantum leap, not only in my acting skills, but also in my approach to the business. One of the courses that was instrumental in helping me understand the business side was a Career Mentoring Workshop with Janice Hoffmann (pictured left). Since that series of classes, Janice and I have kept in touch and occasionally share ideas on the subject of actor marketing. She works with new actors all the time and knows what their difficulties are and have been in starting their acting careers. I asked Janice to share some of those insights with me in this exclusive interview for ActingCareerStartUp.com.

Tony: What would you tell someone Janice who wants to get into acting as a career?

Janice: First thing would be to set up an environment that supports them to do their best work. And if they are serious, they must have training. They must!

Tony: The funny thing is that there are so many people who believe that training just isn’t important. That’s actually one of my Top 10 Reasons Why Most Aspiring Actors Never Make It!

Janice: We’re talking about professional actors. If you want to be competitive, then you have to be well-trained. And if you want to be competitively trained, you have to take a look at what the industry standard is and what the industry feels that a well-trained actor has to have

Tony: So what is the industry standard with regard to training for acting as a career?

Janice: The industry standard says grad school, NYU grad school, Juilliard grad school for example. That’s the competition! You have to look at how actors who have gone to those schools or those types of acting schools are trained and try and understand why the industry says that their graduates are some of the best trained actors. We can debate on whether this is true or not, but in the end it really doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not, because…

Tony: Because that’s what the industry thinks!

Janice: Right! That’s what the standard is. If you come from a Yale graduate program or one of the ones I mentioned above, an agent will give you the time of day more readily than to someone who hasn’t. They believe that people with that kind of training are more competitive. And that’s important to them, because they need to make money. They need to know that they can make a living off of you and your talent as an actor. We’re talking business here.

So if you want to be really well-trained, you have to start considering a really rigorous training curriculum before any business. That’s the first thing. The bottom line. When you’re well-trained and in an environment with other well-trained actors, you’re inspired and you’ll be more passionate and better informed. You’ll be more competitive, more confident and more creative as a leader and as an actor.

I believe that the first step to acting as a career is training. And I do believe in grad school. I also believe that if you don’t have the money to go to grad school, because they are in fact very expensive, then you should create your own curriculum.

Be sure and read part 2 of this exclusive interview with Janice Hoffmann about acting as a career in which she talks about creating your own acting training curriculum that supports your acting career goals.

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Video Special Report!:



The Top 10 Reasons Why
Most Aspiring Actors Never Make It!

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Hi Tony
I would like to thank you for helping me with the monologue question I asked in October 2007. I went to the auditions for a Drama course and I am happy to say that I have been accepted as a first-year student at the Tshwane University of Technology. Please keep on sending me those newsletters and let me know where I can find books that will help me in my acting career. Thank you once more. Have a blessed day.
Sincerely
Edward Thaba -South Africa

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Hi,
I was wondering if there is anything established like actingstartup.com in the U.K. because you are amazing and I have learned loads...
Thank You.
Nadine., Newcastle, UK

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Dear Anthony,
Just wanted to thank you for bringing me in to [audition for the video], meet you and chat this Saturday. I was really excited to hear about your working on actingcareerstartup.com and even took a look at it today - it's awesome! You are very well-spoken, knowledgeable and enthusiastic, and it shows through the work that you do! I hope our paths in the industry will cross again and really enjoyed meeting you. Thanks, again and best wishes with your very important work!
Warmly,
Gretchen, NY, NY

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Hey Tony, thanks for the info, yours by far is the most useful, I am 30 years old, and I myself always (secretly) wanted to be an actress, but I never knew where to begin, so thank you. You have given me hope!
Ana C., Tampa, FL

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Hi, I’m John.
You answered a question for me about two weeks ago about how to write my cover letters…I want you to know your advice was helpful. I got called in for a part as an extra in my first movie! It’s not big, but it’s my first one! Thanks for your help!
John, San Diego, CA