Actors Blake Robbins, Larry Dorf, and Patrick Gallagher debate the merits of thinking long term, building relationships, and avoiding Bitter Actor Syndrome. Is there a magic pill? What does “book the room” mean? Learn five essential rules for getting — and staying — on the radar in this episode of Your Actor MBA!
Short Term vs. Long Term: This episode is a foundation to the entire Your Actor MBA program. Wrapping your head around the long-term approach is key to a healthy mindset and success in this industry.
Patience: Endurance, building relationships, perseverance are all factors in an actor’s success.
It’s About Relationships: There’s no such thing as “me against you” between actors. So many casting decisions are about whose energy feels right and with whom people want to collaborate.
The Magic Pill: There is none. There’s work, there’s training, there’s navigating the filtering process and building relationships.
Book the Room, Not the Role: You cannot be on-edge about any one particular role. You’re always auditioning on a continuum.
The Big Picture: When you’re being called in multiple times, you’ve built up a fanbase. A casting director surrounds herself with a good team and trusts those teammates’ opinions on actors not yet on the casting director’s radar. It’s how Larry got in front of Marci for The Paul Reiser Show.
Preparation: Being off-book, preparing for your audition, bracing yourself for a flat reader, holding the sides as a formality — all of this is part of your prep, along with researching the players and their previous projects before you go into the room.
Training: Training is the foundation for a long-term approach to this business. Larry trained with the Groundlings. There’s a degree of Actor Darwinism among those actors who believe their training isn’t important. A point is made about the importance of interning at talent agencies, management firms, or casting offices to learn a great deal about what is happening in those offices and how actor contact is perceived.
Small Parts Are Underrated: Your first co-star is the biggest challenge. Conversation about having your lines cut and how to avoid that (i.e. “do nothing” and avoid “one-line fever,” since there’s nothing of Shakespearean importance in a one-line co-star, much of the time). That said, understanding that even the tiniest role is a part of the story and that booking is something to celebrate is a big part of the healthy actor mindset.
Avoiding Bitter Actor Syndrome: Staying in a state of gratitude and grace is key. Comparing yourself to others vs. to yourself, as you were earlier in your life. We discuss the spiral of this pursuit and the importance of seeing every day as a good day.
Getting on the Radar: Be good every time you enter the room. How to market when your culture or personality finds marketing offensive. The value of mass mailings vs. self-producing, as tactics for getting in front of the buyers. Doing things that you’re passionate about.
Advice for the Out-of-Town Actor: If you’re moving to Los Angeles, it can be overwhelming. Find your community, stay in class, be prepared to drive everywhere and to eat a lot of sushi! Find ways to make the city small by connecting to your community and plugging in.
Five Essential Rules: Always be on time, hit your mark, let people know where you are, know your lines, and don’t let the fear stop you.
Your Training Never Stops: Even our working actors on this episode continue to train, to do plays, to stay in shape. Athletes train and practice, singers do scales. Actors should always be in practice, even when not in class.
Long-term success in the entertainment industry is much like long-term success in the diet industry. The “secret” is that it takes hard work and discipline over time. Period. Training is essential. Putting in the work is hard and success takes time, but it’ll be worth it!
Access is not a “right” that actors have. The filtering process is in place for a reason. By building meaningful relationships, you make it through more of the industry’s filters — and at higher levels — over time.
Marci says that actors get in front of her when they’re supposed to get in front of her. Mitchell comments that actors can do more damage by forcing themselves into a room before they’re ready. “What’s the hurry?” Mitchell asks, “TV’s not going anywhere,” and then launches into a retelling of the great scene from the movie Colors, which he describes in this blog post for The Actors’ Network: Two bulls — a baby bull and a father bull — are on top of a hill looking over a field of sheep. The baby bull turns to his father and says, “Daddy, let’s RUN down there and fuck a sheep.” The father turns to his son and says, “Why don’t we WALK down there and fuck them all?” Patience. That’s the point.
On the topic of moving to Los Angeles, Blake mentions that until you’re at an “I can call my own shots” place in your career, you really do have to live in one of the major hubs of production to have access to the work. After you’re a “name”-level actor, you can live on a ranch somewhere and be flown out to wherever the work is. But that doesn’t happen for most actors who pursue a career in this industry.
Connecting with the “now” community is so important, as reaching way above your tier could cause you to miss out on building essential and meaningful relationships with the casting associates who cast webseries or student films while on hiatus from their top TV shows. Yes, reach above too, but not to the exclusion of building relationships with your “now” community and peer group of agency assistants and casting associates. These are the people you’ll know for decades. Blake talks about an agent who visited his class at AADA in New York. “He said, ‘You’ll all be knocking down my door when you graduate,’ and encouraged us to knock on each others’ doors. ‘The people you’re around right now, those people are your career in 20 years,’ he said. He was right.” Larry discusses moving up with his peer group at the Groundlings — people with whom he came up, class by class, and who now are his writing partners on the new Looney Toons film. Larry also shared a bit about his process for preparing for auditions.
If you’re interested in interning at a talent agency, management firm, or casting office, make contact (preferably through a referral), describe your interest and goals in interning, and then be prepared to open and sort a lot of mail while you soak up as much information about the inner workings of this company as possible. Actors who intern are generally given a set schedule for a few hours each week, are expected to be on time and professional at all times, are welcomed to ask questions when there’s downtime in the office, and are discouraged from “crossing the line” about auditions the actor is salivating to be a part of (or interest in being signed, if at an agency) in the office. Trust that your professionalism is being noted and appreciated, and that you’ll be given the best opportunity available, when the team truly feels it’s the right fit. They know you’re an actor; you don’t have to keep reminding them that you’d love to be on their show or on their roster. You’re learning and building relationships. Stay focused on that and the other benefits will come.
Patrick says, “There are 100,000 actors in LA. Well, so effing what? That’s like saying the sun comes up.” Finding a way to enjoy the pursuit is key, because no one else is getting “your” role. You can’t compare yourself to anyone else if you expect to have balance and happiness in this career, long-term.
A reminder: Do something you’re passionate about, every day. Keep a list. Keep at it.
There is no recipe for success as an actor that is one-size-fits-all. You only understand what worked upon reflection, after you’ve made it through to the next tier, and the next, and the next.
Getting the breakdowns (the agent- and manager-only level breakdowns from Breakdown Services, which some actors acquire on the sly) is not advised, because it places your focus on what you’re not getting rather than on the work at the level you absolutely could reach now. If you’re the type of actor who could skim the documents and feel better-informed for consuming the data, that’s cool. But if you’re going to obsess over all that’s going on that you’re not yet being invited to experience, don’t torture yourself. It won’t help you avoid bitterness.
Patrick says this career is like running a marathon, and you can’t start on mile 1 worrying about mile 26. Work on where you are and where you’re going next, not way later. That’s the only way to get to that “later” part of the journey.
This episode of Your Actor MBA with your hosts Mitchell Fink, Bonnie Gillespie, and Marci Liroff was recorded on July 17, 2010.