Steps to Success in Acting
There are many steps to success in acting, but none of them will actually work unless you have drive, dedication and a professional attitude. Those are things no article on acting can teach you, but without them you won't get far in the fast-paced, ruthless world of today's entertainment industry.
The first step towards success in acting is to get your head out of the clouds! No matter how much "talent" you think you've got it's going to be a long, hard road before you get anywhere at all, and if you ever get to the point where you can quit your day job you'll be doing better than most of your fellow aspiring thespians.
Assuming you've passed the reality check, the next thing a pragmatic actor will get is some quality education. Take some classes (but make sure they're legit), maybe go to college if you can afford it and it's what you want, and read everything you can find on the business and craft of acting. Read Stanislavski, Brecht, Artaud, Bergson, Growtowski, Meherhold and other masters of the various schools of acting. Read Moni Yakim'sCreating a Character: A Physical Approach to Actingand Cicely Berry'sThe Voice and the Actorto learn the how to comprehensively (and correctly) use your body and your voice to bring your acting roles to life. Read (but don't necessarily believe) every piece of online acting information you can find.
Begin each day developing your voice and body through stretches, rigorous physical activity and specialized acting exercises. Your body and your voice are the tools of your trade, so keeping them in perfect condition is of the utmost importance. It goes without saying that you should eat a healthy diet, go easy on the alcohol, and avoid smoking or illegal drugs. The actors who are serious about looking after their bodies are the ones who are serious about their careers, and as such they tend to get more work.
Get some unpaid experience under your belt by auditioning for community theatre. Get some screen experience by offering your talents to a local student looking to make a short film. Make your acting aspirations known to your friends and co-workers, and ask your boss to keep you in mind if the company is ever looking for someone to appear in a promotional or instructional commercial or video. If you can't find any gigs then grab a friend and a camera, write a five-minute script, and make a one-person performance piece to introduce yourself to the world. Post it on Youtube.
Once you have gotten some work you should begin building your personal acting portfolio, consisting of a resume, head shot, production photos and a demo reel. These materials will be what directors, casting directors and agents will see, so make sure they are clean, professional, available in hard copy and online, and easily available at a moment's notice to anyone who is interested in seeing them.
Prepare at least one audition piece, preferably more, and make sure you have it prepared and ready to go at all times. Casting calls will often contain specfic requests like "comedic monologue, classical, 2 to 3 minutes in length" and if you don't deliver exactly that it will seriously jeopardize your chances of getting the part. It's a good idea to work on your audition piece with an experienced actor or director to ensure it's polished to perfection.
Once you've got some work, some pictures, a demo reel and some audition material you can start looking for an agent. Again, you have to be both careful and realistic. Many agencies are scams - be especially aware of anything that asks you to pay for classes, get headshots from their photographer, or requires you to work overseas on unspecified projects. Many of these outfits are just veils for prostitution rings, and the only "jobs" they will actually get you will be in the porn and escort industries.
Even a legitimate agency won't likely get you stage auditions, nor much in the way of independent film. They are only interested in getting you work that will earn them a decent commission. The catch, though, is that if you do pick up some work outside of their efforts you may still have to pay them their percentage, even if they didn't get you the work (the thinking being that while you're working on the job you got you can't be working on any jobs they might have gotten you). That being said, you still shouldn't rely exclusively on your agent to get you auditions, because to them you're just one of a large number of clients, and if nothing comes up on a given day that you are qualified for they won't worry about not calling you.
The most important step to success in acting comes when you put away the childish fantasies and learn to love acting not as a conduit to fame and fortune but as an artisan's craft, a set of skills to be honed and perfected through learning, experience and time. Once you've made that leap success will be measured in different terms than the number of jobs you get in a year or how much money you've made, and that's when you will really start to enjoy this very old and venerable profession.
