How to Become an Actor: What You Actually Need

Have you heard the fairy tale about the acting industry dragon? It’s a good one. Once upon a time there was The Biz, a ferocious two-headed beast, fangs dripping with shredded dreams, waiting to eat her next victim and his shiny new headshots. Only the one in a million with exquisite bone structure could master the beast, and even he had to know somebody who knew somebody. Nobody lives happily ever after. The end.

Oh, you’ve heard it? Great. Now take that story, crumple the pages and light them on fire. It’s a way for cynics to dismiss your dreams and for the fearful to set the bar so high they never have to try. Yes, you will have to work hard and train relentlessly to be excellent. Name one worthy pursuit in the world that doesn’t ask the same. But becoming a professional working actor is possible, and I can prove it, because I’ve watched a few thousand people do it in one room in Phoenix.

What do you need to be an actor?

Four things, and none of them is a degree. Training you keep going back to. A headshot that looks like you. A résumé with real work on it. And once those three exist, an agent. There are no subjects to pass and no qualifications to hold. There is only the work, and whether you have done it. There are no shortcuts.

The four steps, in order

Chapter one of my book lays out four steps for getting started before you feel ready. Here they are, in the order they work.

1. Take an acting class

Read the reviews first. Former students will almost always expose the crooks. Then read for the school’s values. If they’re aiming to make you better, that’s a good sign. If they’re promising to make you famous, that’s a bad sign. Just like you can’t get a chiseled stomach in five minutes a day, there is no formula for becoming rich and famous as an actor overnight, and anyone selling one is after your wallet.

Once you’ve chosen a school, get out of the car. I’ve heard countless stories of actors who drove to our studio for their first class and sat in the parking lot for the whole hour because they didn’t have the guts to walk in. Don’t do that to yourself. Sign up and walk through the door before you have a chance to think.

2. Go to a networking event

One or two. Go to meet the people who make things in your town, work the room like a professional, and then feel free to leave. Networking events attract a lot of people who got into acting for the wrong reasons, and you are not there to collect them. You are there to find the one person with a camera who is working at becoming the next Spielberg. Go find that person and grow together.

3. Sign up on a few national audition sites

Have a strategy before you enroll. These sites cost time and money before they return anything, and they will not make you rich and famous. They put the notices in front of you. The current list, with what each one is for, is on the book page.

4. Audition locally, for everything

Don’t give fear any room. You are going to screw up, and that’s how you learn. The mistake is the education. If you wait until you’re ready, you’ll never go, and an imperfect first impression beats no impression. Get better and come back. You’ll be noticed for your progress, not remembered by your last failure.

What subjects do you need to be an actor?

None are required, and nobody will ever ask for your transcript. A few help more than people expect. English and literature, because you will read plays for the rest of your life. Speech or debate, because the voice is half the instrument. Anything physical, because the body is the other half and a Broadway performance is an athletic event. And business, because the moment you book a job you are a small business, whether you planned to be one or not. At our studio we train doctors, lawyers, CEOs, real estate professionals, sales associates and everyone in between. None of them took the right subjects for this. They took the class.

The four tools

Training

Here’s the thing to get straight first. If you signed up for guitar lessons, you would not expect to make a living as a musician for a very long time. Yet there’s a stubborn idea among actors who have taken a handful of classes that they are now owed work. Success in this industry happens overnight for very few. For the rest of us it takes years of dedicated, consistent training with instructors who care. Talent doesn’t happen by accident. It’s developed.

What the training has to cover: a set of audition monologues, improvisation, a strong cold-reading technique, tools for building a character, script analysis, and a deep inventory of triggers for emotional work of every kind. Find a school that trains all of it, and then keep going. Your product is you, and a product nobody is improving is a product people stop choosing.

A headshot

In color, natural, and it has to look like you on a Tuesday. Not retouched into a stranger. Ask your acting school, your agent if you have one, and working actors who they trust, then look at the photographer’s work before you book. A good picture is fine. The point of the headshot is to sell the actor. And know that when you sign with an agency they may ask you to shoot again, because they know how they are going to market you.

A résumé

Stapled to the back of the headshot. Your name, your agent’s number if you have one, your email, and your height. Not your personal phone number, and not your weight. Break the experience into sections, film, television, commercials and industrials, theater, and put whichever one you’re auditioning for at the top. Training and special skills go at the bottom. If it’s short, that’s fine. It’s supposed to be short at the start. That’s what step four is for.

An agent, last

You don’t need an agent to get started, and you should begin working before you approach one. An agent’s job is to make money from helping you get work, so you show up with evidence that you can. When you’re ready, start with the SAG-AFTRA franchised agencies in your area, and here’s a trick I tell every student: google the agent’s name with the word “scam” next to it and see what comes up. Two warning signs that never lie. Fees at signing, and pressure to sign today. A legitimate agent charges nothing to represent you, and no agent should need an answer on the spot. How to get an acting agent is its own page, and the Arizona agencies are listed on theirs.

There are no shortcuts

You may read all of this and decide that an actual career in acting is too much for you. That’s okay too. That’s self-discovery, and you just did some. Whether acting is an exploration or a lifelong pursuit, there is no downside to working the acting muscle. Some of the people who walk into our studio fall in love with it and leave their old jobs behind. Others take what they learned in the room back to the job they already have and get better at that. So if you’re feeling the pull, it’s your responsibility to follow through and at least try it. Push yourself out of the car.