Acting Success Begins With An Actors Resume
The headshot expresses the look and feel of the actor at a glance, but the actors resume sells the versatility, skillfullness, and success of an actor before he or she ever shows up to the audition. The purpose of this article is to go back over the reasons for creating an acting resume and also what to think about when you are putting one together.
An acting resume should take up precisely one side of one page, and you will typically have it stapled to the back of your head shot. This single page should represent you as an artist, as an entertainer, as an employee, and as a colleague. In order to do that, you will have to do a little thinking about what the auditioners seem to be looking for. What show are they putting up, and how does it compare to their previous shows? What types of shows do these people typically produce, and what kinds of people do they usually use for the type of part you’re trying out for? Once you’ve considered what they’re looking for, the only thing to do is to try and give it to them. Since you’re a professional actor, this should be the easy part.
The only thing you need to realize is that your acting resume is not an extension of you as an actor, it is an extension of the part you want to play. Don’t be afraid to shape your resume to meet the needs of the character. I would never tell you to lie; just take a look at this sample actor’s resume to get a better understanding of what I mean. This is a little bit of an extra investment in terms of time and energy, but it’s not that big an investment. Five or ten minutes for each audition could very well spell the difference between getting a part or not getting it.