How to become a successful commercial actor

Joseph Fiero

Know the difference between talent agencies and what they can do for you as an actor and submit yourself to agents the handle "commercials" or have a strong relationship with casting directors that mainly do commercials. Seeking the right agent for commercials, deal with and motivating the commercial agent is part of the success.

Joey Fiero and the

Make sure you understand that this type of agent won't really care much if you do plays or showcases except in ways where you image is out there more and more so take care of your face and smile because this is what is going to sell you the most. Keep the "All American Actor Look" if you are in the states. Make sure you have a variety of "character" wardrobe in your car when you go to auditions.

Joey Fiero - Comedic Headshot for Commercials and TV

Pay attention to commercials when you are watching TV and repeat the actors expressions and always be practicing on how not to be to "commercially acting" and take a commercial acting class to understand more of the process of auditioning. Again take care of your smile and teeth, commercials are happy, uplifting and selling most of the time.

Submit yourself Nationally!

When you are searching for casting calls make sure you understand what the terms for the commercial are especially if you are non-union or SAG Financial Core and they are paying you a "buy-out" because you want to make sure you don't get screwed. Normally with PSA's they don't pay you any residuals even under SAG contracts. Educate yourself if you don't know what i'm talking about and read my other articles! Good places for commercial casting calls to look out for are "ActorsAccess.com, LaCasting.com, NowCasting.com, and local cable company production houses"
You can submit nationally in the united states, if they like you they will fly you! If they need a audition from you and you are out of state, film yourself, just try to talk to the director of the commercial to see what he want to see. Send it via email or upload it so the production and ad agency can see it. I've done this many times and even for the NATIONAL SAG, VW commercial on the video uploaded above. It was filmed in Miami, FL and I'm based in Los Angeles and in a way I casted myself because I filmed the whole audition, slated and submitted it to the production and ad agency directly! I bypassed the casting director and acted as one!

Once you complete the audition process don't talk to much or lose the character focus or say you did a bad job. Smile and walk out of the room. Commercial auditions are actually harder to book then theatrical or any other job when it comes to the actual audition. They look at many faces at a time and move quite quickly in auditioning to shooting the commercial. Stay if they tell you to stay!

Keep submitting yourself to commercials and follow up with your agent in regards to getting you out to auditions more. Commercials can help pay your bills. Pay attention to commercials and research the ad-agencies in which they hire and possibly market yourself to some. This is one of the secrets to my success that many actors don't know.

You should be getting out to audition for commercials at least 2-3 times a week and booking at least 2-3 (residual earning) commercials a year. If you don't book anything within a 6 month period, find yourself another agent and if you didn't signed any paperwork with an agent you can just hire another agent to start handling your commercials. Technically this would mean having "two" commercial agents. Sometimes agents get mad at this so you have been forewarned!

If any of the steps above aren't helping you for WHATEVER reason then register yourself with an agency that handles a lot of commercial EXTRA work because commercial extra work is the BEST extra work you can get. They might upgrade you to principal.

Once you have shot a commercial, learn the different between residuals, this applies mostly to UNION actors but can apply to some non-union work. Typical fees are "holding Fees, wild spots, and session fees" or buy outs and re-use payouts via some kind of scale.

One you have been doing a lot of commercials, especially national ones, you have made your market image that much more bigger in the industry as an actor but nothing to brag about outside to normal people. Most actors that are successful commercial actors have an easy transition to TV series and programs. A lot of actors have been discovered this way by being noticed by the directors and production companies that later on work other TV stuff including commercials. So go get them tiger and see you around town! Read my other articles on acting too.