Actor Crisis: Be Your Agent's Boss (& 5 More Ways to Take Charge)
Part four in our series: Essential advice for navigating the new reality
I’m writing about actors this week, and the industry’s problem minting stars. I’ve outlined the existential crisis, the issues with the pipelines of child stars and nepo babies and who and what’s to blame. If you have any thoughts on the problem and how to fix it, I’m at richard@theankler.com.
I’ve established emphatically this week that the acting profession has been completely screwed in recent years. But life goes on. There are still films and TV shows, and they still fill their screens largely with actors.
So how can an actor be in one of those?
If the conversation is, How do we turn the clock back and rebuild the world of 2017? then we’ll never get anywhere. But here we are, and no time machine has been invented yet to take us all back to the preferred era of our choice.
With every disruption, along with all the obvious devastation, there is also opportunity in the ruins. So I turned again to my guides through this week — casting director Felicia Fasano and working actress/audition coach and mentor Anna Lamadrid — to explore how to survive and possibly even thrive, including advice on how to manage your agent into actually working harder for you.
I. Stand on Solid Financial Ground Before Diving In
If you plan on supporting yourself through bit parts, you are going to find yourself in trouble quickly. If acting is what you are called to do, that’s wonderful, and the great dream of stardom will always be out there. But until it comes, know that you are set up to pay your rent. “The industry has changed,” says Lamadrid. “You really have to prepare to be self-sufficient outside of this, and anything else is gravy. But you’re not going to make your living off of this right now if you’re just starting out.”
II. Embrace Zoom
In-person auditions have all but gone the way of the dodo. (Although callbacks are still likely to be face-to-face.) Covid’s most enduring legacy might be the final death knell of the audition room in favor of Zoom. Although some people hate the remote video audition, for many, it’s a different but easier world to navigate.
“It’s very divisive, but it makes a huge difference for a lot of people,” says Lamadrid.
