What Are the Important Things Acting Agents Look For?

Series Summary

An actor is a person who suppresses or augments aspects of their own personality in order to reveal and illustrate the motivations and aspects of a character's personality. Acting has its roots in ancient Greece and over time has become one of the most compelling and revered artistic enterprises. Actors must possess a range of skills including: singing, dancing, imagination, clarity of speech, physical expressiveness, vocal projection and the ability to emulate emotional and physical conditions. In this free video series, a professional actor provides advice for aspiring actors and actresses. Find out what the most important things are that acting agents look for, how to make an acting resume and how to break into the acting industry. Learn about colleges for actors and resumes for child actors as well. Get an acting career off the ground with tips from these free videos.

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Richard Rifkin and we're here at the Merlin Theater in Budapest, Hungary, and we're going to talk about 'What Are the Things That Acting Agents Look For?' Well, being a professional actor, I know a lot about that, and the one thing is when you're walking in to an agent's office, you certainly have to have a lot of confidence and you can, you know, be kind of a character. You have to be remembered, that's one thing. They've got to meet you and go "Wow, if we send this guy out for a job, he's going to get the job, because he's confident. He's a character," as I said, and also of course, you're experienced. They're going to want to know how much experience have you had? Have you worked a lot professionally, either in films or T.V. Commercials. Or have you done a lot of theater work, because if you're up there, on the boards, in front of people, in the theater, you're getting experience. And there's nothing better than doing it. So, these are things they're going to look for. They're also going to look for things like what other activities you can do. How, I guess, diverse you are. Can you...can you do a lot of physical things? Do you have training in the martial arts? There's a lot of action films being done now. So, are you possibly a boxer, or you know kung fu or karate or something of that sort. It gives them something to sell if they're going to try to cast you into an action film, for instance. Also, dialects and voices. You should be able to be different from time to time. If a director is looking for a character that you would be playing, such as an English person, say in the theater, you have to be able to do an English accent. You can't just go in there and say "Oh, I think I can do an English accent." No, you've got to be sure, certain. One hundred percent that you can. Things of that sort. So, when you...when you go in looking for an agent, remember all of these things, because they're very important for you to get a good agent. And, more important though, still, is get an agent. It may not be the top agency, but once you're in, you can sort of start to climb up that ladder and get the agent that'll work best for you. Thanks."