Getting Work as an Actor: What’s the Secret?

Spoiler alert: there are no shortcuts. I put that line in my book because every week someone asks me for one, usually like this: “I’m not working. I don’t have enough jobs. I’m not doing my thing.” My answer is always the same question back. What did you do today to get better?

There is exactly one way to be successful as an actor, and that is to actually work as an actor. Not to be hired as one. To work as one, every day, whether anyone is paying you yet or not. Here’s what that means in hours.

Forget the last audition

I watch actors talk about an audition for three weeks. They post about it, they replay it, they wait by the phone. Here’s my question: what did you do the second you walked out? Because the audition was over the moment the door closed, and the only thing it can still do for you is teach you something for the next one. If you’re not up hours before your other job to work on this job, then acting is not your profession yet. It’s your hobby. That’s fine, honestly, but be honest about which one it is.

Start working to become an actor

Acting can be your profession right now if you treat it like one. For most people that means a second shift. Finish the day job, eat dinner, kiss the kids goodnight, and then go to work: read plays, work monologues, get on camera. Why aren’t you reading four plays a month? Why aren’t you working four monologues? It isn’t hard. It’s a choice. And if you were the only actor in your market who did that for the next two years, you would be better than everyone around you, and there is no way to cast around that.

I wrote it this way in the book: as an actor, you are the product you are selling; therefore, working on yourself and the craft of acting is like buying inventory. Nobody hires a store with empty shelves.

Count the hours

You get 24 hours in a day. Sleep eight, and you have 16. Work a 9 to 5, and on a weekday you still have eight. Five weekdays is 40 hours. Add the two weekend days at 16 each and you’re at 72; take a day off entirely if you want and it’s still 56. Fifty-six hours a week that you are awake and not at your job. That’s more than a full-time position. What are you doing with it?

I’m not going to tell you how much to sleep or that you can’t watch a game. I’m telling you the hours exist, because most actors who say they have no time have never counted.

Schedule it, then check it

Once you know the hours are there, schedule them. Every one. Then, at the end of the week, look back at the schedule and answer honestly: what did I do, and what did I not do? That review is the whole difference between the people who make it and the people who talk about it. The ones who make it are willing to grind, and they’re willing to look at the grind and see where it was thin.

Here’s the part nobody likes. This is a profession everybody wants. Your competition is the world. So the person you have to beat is you, yesterday, every single day, and no job, agent or booking will arrive to rescue you from that. National audition sites will not make you rich and famous. Nor will they be a free path to success. These websites require an investment of time and money in order to see a return. So does everything else on this page.

You may read this and decide that’s more than you want to give. That’s okay too; that’s self-discovery, and it’s cheaper to learn now than in ten years. And if you read it and something in you said yes, then you already know what to do tonight after the kids are down.