How Actors Can Create Work for Themselves
One of the most important things when pursuing a career as an actor is understanding reputation and that your reputation as an actor is what matters most. However, you don’t need other people’s help to create a reputation. You can do that on your own today. You can do that through creating content and through all sorts of mediums because the mission is not necessarily booking more work.
Instead, the mission as an actor is to become known. You achieve that through consistently reaching out, consistently building relationships, consistently showing up at auditions and being the best version of yourself that you can be. This is where the skill and psychology come in. If you don’t have the skills to back it up, you can promote it all you want and build relationships on social media all you want, but in the end, you’re going to have to have the skillset.
At the same time, if you have the skillset and nobody knows that you exist, you’re never going to actually have the career that you want either. So, you need to find a way to bridge both. Fortunately, there are ways of doing this so you can create your own work. Frankly, it’s very easy nowadays. You likely have a phone in your pocket right now, and that’s all you need to have to create something. Just pull it out, come up with something, and start filming.
One thing that actors tend to forget is that because we live in a world where technology is so democratized, we don’t have to wait to be given permission to work anymore—and in truth, you really shouldn’t. Many of the happiest actors in the profession go out on auditions, get hired, and do the work. But, during those times when that isn’t happening, they’re getting together with friends, they’re practicing self-tapes, and they’re giving each other feedback.
They’re also writing things, or they’re using their iPhones or cameras or borrowing equipment from a friend or relative and learning how to make work themselves. These days, an actor entering the profession after finishing school, or really anyone who’s just getting started in the industry, is really somebody who needs to be a constant generator of their own work and their own success.
It also helps to be spending time every day having conversations with representation or with other actors. Many actors choose to get together every week and read plays together just to continue progressing and keep their minds working on text. Other actors get together regularly and do self-work with other people present, just to practice that unique skill of auditioning. Some people just make short film after short film or web serieses. They do whatever it takes to be consistently practicing.
Actors, unlike say, somebody who plays a sport and can potentially go and practice very easily or play in a pickup game, tend to often think about the whole scope of what it would take to create an actual production. Or, they try to get cast and let their focus narrow down to just getting hired to do the job in that one specific way. And when they approach it this way, they miss out on using that time to develop more skills, more productive practice, and doing the things that will actually make them more likely to book work.
To have the best chance of success, they need to see themselves as creators and as somebody who has the power to create things for themselves, even if they’re struggling to get hired in that particular moment.
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