How To Start Acting

How to start acting? Aspiring actors want to know what some concrete steps they can take if they are at the very beginning of their acting careers.

I discussed this the other day with best-selling author Brian O’Neil (Acting As A Business: Strategies For Success) and this is his list of 5 things you can easily do to start your acting career.

1. Get some training in acting technique as well as specialty training, i.e. on-camera commercial training, acting for film, etc.

2. Put together some monologues for your auditions. It will do you little justice if you get a meeting with an agent or get an audition and you don’t have anything prepared.

3. Contact your local (reputable ones!) theatres in your area to attend staged readings of plays, participate as a reader, read stage directions or usher. This will put you in close proximity to the people you want to meet (people who cast the plays, directors, artistic directors, other actors: all sources of contact and information for you.

Participating as a reader in staged readings with reputable theatres, extra work and soap work along with your training, training, training are great ways to start to build a résumé, especially if you have nothing to put on it.

4. Contact agencies that cast for background work. Extra or background work provides a great education to see how actors really work on set. You get to see it all up close. It’s great experience at the beginning of your career.

5. Find out who the people are who cast for soap operas (especially if you are in New York or Los Angeles). Getting work on soaps is very accessible even if you don’t have an agent. It’s relatively easy to get cast in small roles for these programs and there are a lot of opportunities every day as soaps are shot 5 days per week, 52 weeks per year.

With regard to this point, Brian told me about a client of his who was able to book 12 days on a soap in New York and he did it without an agent. He told of another who booked three days, all speaking roles; once again without an agent.

6. One more tip with regard to how to start acting: Finding an agent for on-camera commercials and commercial print and/or voice over work, are other opportunities you could pursue in the meantime. You must take into consideration, however, that those areas also require certain skill sets. For example, there are specialized classes for on-camera commercials and also improvisation is a great help to prepare for that kind of work as well.

You must realize, however, that if you want to not only ensure that you will be able to start acting as soon as possible, but also create a long and successful career, you will need certain characteristics that working actors have.

Brian O'Neil is the author of the best-selling book for actors Acting As A Business: Strategies For Success, a must read for anyone who is serious about pursuing an acting career. Brian has more than twenty years experience in the industry as an actor, manager and agent. It is possible to contact Brian directly at www.actingasabusiness.com for personal consutations as well as for his speaking and seminar schedule.

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What you’re doing is great Anthony. Whenever I read the things on your site, the interviews and even your book, I feel like if only everybody got to read this before they got started, they would be so much better off and everybody else (casting directors, agents, directors, etc.) would be so much better off too.
Personal Manager, Ingrid French

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Tony,
I want to say you changed my life. I want to be an actress so bad, but i began losing motivation when I couldn't figure out what to do. And then I found you! Thanks to you, I'm taking my first acting classes next month! Yippee!
Sara, Pasadena, CA

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Hi Tony
I would like to thank you for helping me with the monologue question I asked you. 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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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