Movie Star Job Description

Series Summary

Movie stars, the actors and actresses who portray our favorite heroes and heroines on film, hold a special place among American popular culture, the role of royalty. Like the kings and queens of the past, American movie stars showcase the latest fashions, extravagant lifestyles, personal scandals and esoteric elitism once practiced only by card-carrying nobility and royal families. A movie star can make one or two dozen million dollars for one film, making them some of the highest paid members of our society, ranking just above athletes and just below true capitalists. A career as a movie star is sure to offer a glimpse of the “high life,” but remember, fame lasts only so long. In this free video series on a career as a movie star, professional actor Marc Macaulay gives advice to would-be movie stars and talks about many aspects of the profession, including salary, hardest days and qualifications. Macaulay tells it like it is, offering tips on how to become a movie star, the pros and cons of being a Hollywood actor, and the basic job description.

Video Transcript

"A movie star is a working actor that's been elevated to the status of a move star by the public and the fans that watch movies. Movie stars aren't typically made in their first time out of the gate so to speak but they are elevated to the status of a heavenly body as it were by the people that enjoy and appreciate movie, movies in general. Movie stars typically are at the top of their game they're great entertainers, when people have a movie star in a movie it elevates the movie to a rarefied status usually that people can generally guarantee themselves when they lay down the money at the box office they're going to enjoy themselves to see this person or they've developed a relationship with this person or persons over the years from watching them and enjoying their performances. The movie star terminology is kind of strange in general like I said, I guess the stars being the highest that a person can go since that seems to be the limits of our universe. I don't know maybe a movie planet, your a movie planet doesn't sound to good but movie star actually sounds like oooh shiny, ya, that sort of thing, and all the embellishment and glossiness that goes with it. But movie stars typically are the ones that get a move made and they are hired by the directors and the studios that want to insure that this product is given every best chance of succeeding. So the more movie stars you have in your project generally has the better chance it has of succeeding. A typical day of a movie actor, it means getting up very early, going to the set, getting made up, hopefully not after until you get a cup of coffee, and sitting in a make up chair and getting your face powdered and your little things wiped out of your eyes that have accumulated there overnight sometimes, it's rather embarrassing and then you go to the hair department and they of course adjust your hair or in my case they don't have a lot to do so I'm pretty much just make up and out the door. But then you go to the set and have a walk through or a rehearsal for the scene which you're going to do first and then the lighting crew, the grips come in and they light the scene and you talk to the director about maybe concerns or problems you're having you know with the way the blocking is, your relationship with another character within the scene. And then you wait around and then you shoot the scene over, and over, and over, and over."