Advice for Actors: Getting Signed

Dear Actor

Today is the fourth in my series on getting the acting career that you want.

You can read parts 2 and 3 on GETTING GOOD and GETTING NOTICED here.

Today is about signing with an agent.

You may or may not go to drama school to get good, drama school offers you the best chance to get noticed, to get seen by casting directors and potentially signed by agents…but it’s not the only way – however, if you’re going to get access to premium jobs, and make the career you want, you’re going to need an agent. A decent agent.

I get many messages from people all over the UK asking if I can suggest agents that might take them on. IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT.

If you aren’t GOOD, and you haven’t NOTICED them, and got them to NOTICE you, no one is going to sign you. Not in a million years.

Of course, because agents = work, every Tom, Dick and Jenny wants to get to them. And so they make it difficult for you to see them. I don’t blame them. As the clueless and the profoundly NOT GOOD assail their real and virtual doorstep, they find it hard to spot the diamond in the rough.

First get GOOD. Then get some experience of good quality. A few high quality reviews. A few pieces of worthy showreel material. If you really are good, they won’t all reject you. But you have to be good, not hopefully good, not done a bit of training, not tired of trying to get good – so might as well give it a punt – really. actually. good.

Of course you can work without an good agent, and if you’re happy with SA (Supporting Artist) work, or a few lines here and there, then settle for that.

But if you’re not, then investigate the agents that you think might be amenable to speaking with you. Don’t contact the big dogs straight off, they get hundreds, thousands of enquiries, don’t waste your breath, ink, postage, efforts. Start small, start reasonably local, not extra agencies, not rentacrowd style, – only actors’ agents.

Now think. Why should they even have a meeting with you?

What is it they want in a client? Do you know? They need to make money, they need someone good, some mature, with a head for the business, will you waste the opportunities they create for you, will you fold, will fail to meet your potential?

And then it comes down to this. Get a recommendation from someone you know, someone who is already signed with them. If you didn’t go to drama school, this is the best way to do it.  And don’t let them down, because you won’t get another chance. And people in the industry have LONG memories.

Don’t know anyone? Then you aren’t even in the business. GET GOOD. GET NOTICED (get quality experience and notice the industry) – GET NETWORKING.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about GET WORKING…