Holidays are expensive for everyone, but if you put the “starve” in “starving artist” they can be especially trying. If you’re looking to pick up that extra gig to get you through the season, here are a few places to apply: Theme Parks – Theme parks are often-overlooked sources for actor employment. Many will have […]
Between hustling for future acting gigs and basic survival, keeping yourself from getting rusty can be a struggle. We all have those stretches that feels like the only acting we’re practicing is squished into 30 second self-tapes for the local lottery. Even if you’re booking, how do you keep yourself sharp and constantly expanding your […]
Delivering an honest, organic emotional connection is the heart of our work as actors. But it is not an easy task. It requires a level of technique and artistry that is often dismissed or diminished in the mind of the general public. The business side of “show” makes it even harder: not only do actors […]
Assemble, spooky ghouls and ghoulettes! Brought to you by the month of October and the letter ‘H,’ I give to you a post in the Halloween Spirit. As actors, we get the privilege of living a sort of permanent Halloween for our work. Some of us even work Halloween itself…there is no shortage of haunted […]
Actors are simultaneously asked to be readily in touch with their most vulnerable emotional selves, and to have the hide of a rhinoceros. We must bare our souls and brush the rejection off our shoulders. But the myth is that this skill should somehow be inherent, that it doesn’t take work, that actors who make […]
In the age of self-tapes and market saturation, auditions can come fast and furious. Especially if you live in a major film city, keeping up with every show, pilot, miniseries and web series can feel like trying to count grains of sand as they sift through your fingers. Free yourself from this expectation now: there […]
There is a lot of romance and mysticism surrounding careers in the arts. An actor’s life is often packaged by society to reflect the experience of Hollywood A-listers, or else the vague stereotype of the “starving artist.” The problem is, there is not a lot of consistent practical advice on how to achieve one […]
Hey. You’ll never be ready. You’ll never have the training to tackle Hamlet. You’ll never be ready for your first feature. You’ll never have the charisma to carry an AMC series and you can’t afford home studio equipment. You won’t be skinny enough to book that commercial. You won’t have the star power […]
Burnout claims us all eventually. The uncertain nature of the entertainment industry often means actors are overloaded with day jobs, multiple overlapping projects, and the daily stress of survival with little job security. We’re afraid to say no to any gig in case it will be our last. We take on extra shifts and extra […]
“Don’t make perfect the enemy of the good.” It’s something my mom says a lot, and something I, in the tradition of daughters everywhere, frequently ignore to my detriment. I think a lot of artists struggle with lurking demons of perfectionism. The subjectivity of the entertainment industry makes it easy to fall into self-loathing echo […]