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The First Steps

The First Steps Before you can call yourself the next Meryl Streep or Tom Cruise there are some preliminary steps to becoming an actor. Once you commit yourself to following your dream, consider these first preparations.

Training: You might like to think you’re a natural, but every actor has to go through some form of training, either in an acting school, college, or one-on-one coaching environment. The basics of movement, working with a script, warming up, and differing between stage and film techniques are important to be aware of. Singing and dancing classes are also helpful, especially if you’re shooting for musical theater jobs.

Develop special skills: You never know what a potential role might call for an actor to do, whether its horseback riding, fencing, speaking another language, or something even more off-beat. Any special skill is valuable and may set you apart from the competition for a particular part. As a general guideline, learn basic stage combat, dance, and a few different accents as a minimum.

Get in shape, physically and mentally: An actor uses his entire body and mind when working, and it is important to be as strong as possible, both bodily and intellectually. Find a workout regime that suits your schedule and needs so that your body can handle any physically daunting role.

Working out your brain is just as important. Reading books stimulates your mind, especially those about the techniques and business of acting. The Back Stage Actor's Handbook provides a nice introduction, but other suggestions can be made by fellow actors or teachers. Reading plays, especially aloud, allows you to deepen your working knowledge of the classic scripts and gives you practice.

Save Money: There’s a lot of truth in the nickname “starving artist.” In any performing career you have to be willing to sacrifice a little dough in order to take the cake in success later on. Traveling to auditions, taking classes, and preparing headshots and resumes all require a decent sum of cash. If you plan to move to a big city with more acting jobs, be prepared to pay even bigger rent with even more expenses. We recommend saving several thousand dollars before making the trip. (Trust us, the first year will cost much more than you can anticipate.)

Prepare headshots and resumes: 8x10 photos of yourself along with a list of experience are your one and only way to make a good first impression on an agent or casting director. For more information, see Headshots and Resumes.

Audition, audition, and audition some more: Auditions are the opportunities for casting directors to see your talent in action. You will usually read pages from a script (called ‘sides’) or be asked to recite a monologue. For musical theatre you may be asked to sing 16 bars of a song and/or learn a short dance combination. Auditioning requires a set of skills unto itself, and these can be developed by going to as many auditions as you can. With each experience, despite the outcome, you gain confidence and exposure while decreasing nerves.

Get experience: If you want to be an actor, then act. Any amateur or professional work, beginning even with school or community theater, builds your base for the future. Making your own films or volunteering to work on local student films are also beneficial opportunities if auditions aren’t working out.

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