As a single mom of an 8-month-old girl, independent casting director Neely Gurman has just a quick moment to chat via phone from her Woodland Hills home as her daughter takes a rare nap. “She’s hyper,” Gurman said. “She works ...
New York, or L.A.? It’s the perennial question asked by up-and-coming performers of all stripes, as well as people working in the myriad of other jobs associated with the entertainment business. Do you prefer sunshine and glamour, and don’t mind ...
We all love acting. And with good reason: performing can be a beautiful, moving, profound experience of connection with one’s fellow performers and an audience. Of course, in order to get to the performance part of it, you usually have ...
Auditions are often called the toughest job interview in the world, and with good reason. You’ve got a little more than a minute to make an impression and show the casting team that not only do you have the acting ...
It’s a common cry among newer actors: “How do I get an agent?” But it’s also not all that uncommon among actors who have been around for a while. Sometimes you and your agent don’t see eye-to-eye on what sort ...
As artists in a demanding, competitive field, successful actors are constantly pushing themselves. There’s always the next class, the next audition, the next performance to prepare for. But one place where many actors fail to keep on top of the ...
We spend a lot of time talking about–and let’s be honest, stressing about–monologue auditions. It makes sense that our focus would be there of course; after all, generally speaking the monologue audition is the first step. It’s the initial test ...
Much of what actors encounter on sites like NYCastings–aside from the tremendous opportunity to sign up to receive hundreds of audition notifications every week in your inbox–has to do with auditioning. There are a million articles on preparing for the ...
As actors we deal with a lot of pressures that people in the ordinary working world don’t have to worry about. For instance, if you work in a cubicle you can kind of lay low and hide out if you’re ...
When you move to Los Angeles, as an actor, one of the first things on your mind is getting that top notch agent or manager. But for most, unless you have been referred over, you’ve got to bring something to ...
Ask any actor who has attended an open audition lately: the acting business is crowded. Every day more and more starry-eyed dreamers leave behind their small town successes and head for Hollywood or New York, seeking to parley their star ...
As actors we all have our personal strengths. Like a baseball power hitter, we all have our wheelhouse–in other words our favorite type of role to play: that sweet spot where we’re confident we can hit it out of the ...
“Acting is all about…” As you go through your life as an actor, there are so many things you come to find out acting is “all about.” Every instructor, coach, director, agent, manager, and even advice columnist will at some ...
We talk a lot about auditions and the stress of them–after all, auditions are our “job interviews,” and nobody likes job interviews. (Next time your non-actor friends and family suggest that you complain too much about auditions, ask them how ...
The feeling is familiar to even the most successful actor: that one audition you were so stoked about, the one where you were so sure you had nailed the perfect audition for the perfect role for you–and you didn’t get ...
“I knew that if I wanted to be all I could be, I would have to go to the U.S. It took three years to get the accent right.” –Idris Elba If you’re like me, tuning in to watch “The ...
If you go out to see theater on a regular basis–and you really should, not only to support theater in general as well as your friends’ shows, but also to contribute to your ongoing education as an actor–you’ve probably seen ...
So you got the call. You’ve been selected from dozens of actors who auditioned to attend the callback. Congrats, first of all! Now the real work begins. Your excitement kicks in first: you think about how cool would it be if ...
Acting is hard. Not to sound whiny, but it really can’t be said enough: no matter what normal humans may think about the supposedly cushy life of the actor, the vast majority of us are not passing our days hanging ...
As fallible human beings, it’s easy for actors to fall into the trap of the green-eyed monster of envy. You’ll see an actor you know who has comparable skills and a comparable look to your own, yet who nonetheless seems ...