How to Make an Acting Resume

Whether your acting experience includes one high school play or ten films, you still make an acting resume the same way. The following steps outline how to format your acting resume, and what to include. A sample acting resume is also linked to below.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Open a new document in your word processing program of choice to make an acting resume. At the top include your name, address, phone number and email.

2. Identify your Hair, Eyes, Height, Weight and Vocal Range details, and list them underneath your name and contact information.

3. List your previous acting experience by category – theater, film, TV, commercial – in the order of your preference. If most of your experience is in theater, start with that. Of course, if you’re auditioning for a film role, and you have film experience, you may want to start with that instead.

4. Include underneath your previous acting roles any relevant education or training, such as degrees, classes and workshops.

5. Make note of any awards or honors you’ve received from your acting roles. Include this information underneath the education and training section. If you have yet to receive any awards or honors, that’s okay. Simply omit this section.

6. Brainstorm all the special skills that you could bring to a role – from dancing to archery to accents and dialects. Make this the last section on your acting resume.

7. Print your acting resume on 8 ½ by 11 white paper.

8. Staple your acting resume to the back of your headshot, using one staple on all four corners.

Tips & Warnings

• • You need not include dates for your acting roles, or list them in chronological order. Instead, list your most important roles first when you make an acting resume.
• • Unless you’ve had enough college or professional acting experience to fill out your resume, feel free to list the acting roles you had in high school.
• • When listing your acting experience, break each item into three columns. For instance, for a TV role, you would have the name of the program in one column, the name of your character in a second column and the station/director in another.
• • For your theater experience, include the name of the production, the name of the character you played, the theater where it was performed and the director.
• • For your film experience, include the name of the film, the name of the character you played, the studio and the director.
• • For your TV experience, include the name of the program, the name of the character you played, the station on which the program ran, and the director.
• • For your commercial experience, include the type of product and whether it ran regionally or nationally.
• • Make an acting resume using a 12-point font.
• • Keep your acting resume to one page. If you’re having trouble squeezing it all in, you may try using an 11-point font (nothing smaller than 10-point though). Or you could try adjusting the margins.