So I'm doing it. I'm going to auditions and submitting things through Actors Access. I'm networking and going to organized schmooze events and all of that. I'm committed. I attend workshops and table reads to help me learn more about acting techniques. I pore over countless scripts and books of monologues and poetry, absorb Chekhov and Strindberg, practice regional dialects in the car on my way to and from my Blasted Day Job. Yesterday I auditioned for a role in a play that required an RP English accent.
And it felt good.
But I don't want to be one of 'those' actors that simply sends out the obligatory headshot & resume mailings into the Casting Director ether. I'd much rather make friends with various casting professionals and learn something useful from them about what they do and their processes. I've worked in the film industry for 16 years -- behind the scenes -- from a Production Manager to a PA and just about everything in between but I never got any exposure to the casting people. They were always in an undisclosed office space that was listed on the call sheet but nobody ever went there. I assume the writer's offices were next door, because nobody ever saw them, either.
I'm fascinated by how CD's come up with some of their more creative casting choices. I always wonder how they manage to find those unexpected nuggets of gold in a character actor that nobody's ever seen before (go see "The Terminal" -- the character of "Gupta Rajan" played by a little-known 84-year-old actor from India named Kumar Pallana is one of those rare nuggets); Or how they just KNOW to cast someone that seems at first glance to be completely out of place in a role that ends up glowing because the actor added something indefinable to the role that no other actor would have thought of. How do they do that? How do they know? Is it instinct, research... or just luck?
And as a long-time community theater actor, I am discovering for the first time about the Hollywood "system." I'm learning about the do's and don'ts of submitting, about the scams that get an actor to pay a $10 'class fee' to meet a casting professional... I'm trying to find a good showcase workshop in an ocean full of mediocre or truly bad ones, and trying to meet people in this unfamiliar end of the Hollywood community.
There are a lot of closed doors, and I don't want to become one of 'those' actors that over-mail, or become such a pain in the butt that nobody wants to hire them. But then again, I don't want to be so polite as to fall under the casting radar. My husband says I'm not pushy enough, but there has to be a way to get into the loop without losing my inherent sense of common courtesy and decorum.
If it were easy... I know, I know.
This morning I contacted AFTRA. I want to be listed in the Academy Players Directory, but an actor has to be union to get in there. I thought (apparently erroneously) that SAG and AFTRA were one and the same. The rules, no more "vouchers" (now it's a "point system") and the whole gauntlet that an actor has to run through in order to achieve SAG status confused me. "They" say you have to be a union actor. "They" don't tell you that it takes an act of God to get there. It's harder than ever. However, AFTRA has a different set of rules and entry requirements. But so far, I haven't been able to find anyone that really can tell me what's going on. I think everyone's confused.
"They" also say you need an agent. Okay, how does THAT work? Another obligatory mass-mailing of photos and resumes? And it's not as if agents don't already get several hundred of those a week. How does an actor keep from simply getting lost in the piles? How do you know an agent's a good one or a bad one? What kind of agent should I get? Should I have more than one? WHY do you need an agent?
I've been reading "Casting Q's" by Bonnie Gillespie, and I am learning about the various CD's likes and dislikes, but mostly I am learning that every casting person is very different. There is no one right or wrong way. What's right to one might completely put another off.
It's all quite overwhelming. But I am not one to give up because something is difficult. I really WANT this. I'm not looking to get famous. I simply want to be able to act full-time.
Life is far too short to work at something you can only tolerate.
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