I've been receiving quite a lot of messages about one simple topic: agents.
"I am an actress. Do you have any tips on how to get an agent?"
This post is an attempt to answer this question and I'll try to make it as personal as possible, reflecting my own experiences and my own struggle in this industry.
Let's go back to the 90s, when I decided to become a model.
I'm from a very small town in Portugal, 5 hours away from the capital. I was 13 when I started sending pictures to agencies. I've been rejected since I was 13 and today, believe me, I am very quick in moving on with my life when things don't happen as I expected. It's unconscious. I already wrote about this. I get scared sometimes of how desensitized I became, especially when facing rejection. Ok, I feel sad about the project, there are characters and scripts which I adore, and it makes me sad to lose them, but that's all. I fight for them and I work hard, I put my brains, my heart and my soul into it and then I let it go. If I get lucky great, if not... more oportunities will arise.
I have an agent, a commercial agency in London, and I feel over the moon when I get castings and work through them, but the last thing I do is to wait for their phone call. I wish the phone rang more often really. But I do my best, I keep collaborating with photographers and filmmakers and every time I have new pictures and new material to update my portfolio, I send them to the agency and luckily I'll get more work thanks to this new material.
Most of the unpaid work I've done so far in modeling and acting led to paid work. It's important to be involved in good unpaid work also. Don't take pictures or be involved in projects just to add credits to your resume. In the end, your name will be associated to the final product and if you're not proud of it, there won't be any travelling machines to fix the mess. Everything will be on the internet and if a casting director or someone types your name, there you are. But you have to learn by yourself, you need to collect your own mistakes and to grow from them.
I think intuition plays a good part in making these decisions. Keep your senses open. Work smart. There's a lot of scammers out there that will take advantage of your acting and modeling dreams and they will promisse you the sun and the moon. Do your research, please!
I used Model Mayhem to build my portfolio when I arrived in London. I met wonderful people throught Model Mayhem, but I also had two or three unconfortable situations. I think, an agency plays an important role here. These are the situations where being attached to an agency will reduce the stress and the danger of bumping into the wrong people. If it's a good agency, serious and established, they will take care of the booking for you, they will talk to the client and you won't need to chase anyone to get paid. Everything will happen smoothly and safely. I repeat: a good agency! Is it hard to get a good agency!? I think it's all about timing, preparation and luck. For some people it's a combination of these three elements, for others it's just luck, for others it's just preparation, others might have privilege contacts, but what works for other people won't necessarily work for you. You have your own journey.
I have a friend, a senior actor, a fantastic woman with an incredible resume, who worked everywhere, doing mostly theatre; she is in her 60s and many people ask her where does she gets her patience from! It's ok to learn from celebrities but if you want to get a raw perspective of an actress lifestyle, of their struggles and of their journey, go and meet those who are not in the public eye, who never got their big break, but who actually worked a lot, doing theatre, television and short films, voice overs, who keep looking for an agent after decades of experience. Those who persist after decades of experience will give you the most honest and realistic picture of what it means to be an actress and what it means to look for an agent.
My point is, acting is the only thing you can control! You can try to find acting work every day. Everyday you should focus on finding work in casting platforms, getting involved in theatre, researching workshops and plays, learning knew skills that will make you a better actor. Recently, I learned editing and it's something I do to get some extra money. I want to learn boxing or some dancing skills too. During the last two and an half years I developed my writing and my comedy skills and I co created a web series called Sessions.
I applied to a thousand agencies and I didn't get any feedback. Portugal has a very small but productive entertainment industry and starting there really helped me. Agents are super important there but actors have to be very proactive in finding work in Portugal, especially by nurturing good relationships with everyone they meet. They know the importance of learning people skills. There's a strong triangle in Portugal that you learn straight away: The press, you and your agent and finally the tv and the production company. You go to school and you learn the purest part of the art form, the acting part, the literature and suddenly you finish the course and you find yourself on your own and you learn the business part of the art form. A working actor will definitely find a code to blend everything gracefully. Learn the art and learn the business. Be a "people person", be kind, be calm, smile, don't engage in negative coffee talks about how everything is unfair, be cool, be professional and serious about your job but relax, have a life, other things you love to do, friends, hobbies and another job, have savings too! If I knew what I know today, I would have saved more really! Off course, things can work out for you straight away and you can actually be successfully and earn a lot of money, but even if this happens, my advice to you is... Save! Today you're a working actor but you can spend the next two or three years struggling to find work again. Save! You can't go to an audition desperate because you have to pay the bills. You need to go there confidently and act as if you don't need it.
I wish I could have a theatrical agency in London helping me to get small parts here and there, in films and tv series, but London is foggy when it comes to that. I have my commercial agency and I get modeling jobs that I am really proud of. I am not a Vitoria Secret model though. My income doesn't come only from that. I also got an audition for a film through my commercial agent which was quite surprising. If you don't have acting credits or an acting training, I believe it might be easier to approach a commercial agency first.
If you want to get an agent, do your research and find the agents you would like to work with. There are two agencies in London, I would die to work with and I am preparing a cover letter and my headshots to send to them next week, so fingers crossed! I sent my stuff to my agency two years before I got signed and the answer was "no". Then I sent them everything again one year later, and the answer was "no" again. Finally, they accepted me by the third time I approached them. It's all about persistence and keeping the interest and the motivation to work even without an agent, in learning not only about acting but about the business and about your ownself as an entrepreneur. In the end, you'll be your own agent and your name is your business and your company. It might be confusing in the beginning but if you keep your head in the game I promise you that slowly you'll get your questions answered.
The frustrating part is: this is a long slow process and you might end up realizing that your passion is something else. As long as you're an actor, your life you'll never be automatic, unless you get a part in a television series that lasts for 7 years or so or a long term project with a defined schedule. If not... Your life you'll be full of ups and downs. If your parents and those around you have nothing to do with the arts, explaining this to them, might become a nightmare.
Can you imagine yourself in your 60s and 70s still looking for an agent and still nurturing the same passion and adrenaline for acting that you have now, even though you never got that big break, an Emmy nomination or an Hollywood mansion?
If so... here's a few tips:
Try to understand your type. What's your typecast? What's your strengths? Is it comedy? Is it drama? If you were a famous actors, what famous actor would you be? I am not asking you... what famous actor would you like to be? What I am asking is... What famous actor is chosen to play the characters that you could also be playing. It's funny because if you read this blog, you'll find a post about typecasting and how angry I was about this topic two years ago. You'll understand by reading this blog my growth as an actress too. It's not that now I think the opposite of what I wrote back in 2013 about typecasting. It's just that, now, I accepted it as it is. After so many auditions and after reading so many casting breakdowns, I finally understand my typecast and how to use it for my own advantage. Jennifer Aniston is known for her comedies. Are you unsure of her dramatic abilities? Go and see "The Good Girl". I loved the movie and how raw and pure she was. But she is bankable as a comedic actress. She is likable and she is not making any effort to be likable. Discovering yourself as an actor and as a person, finding your voice and what people like about you even if it's not what you like about yourself, turning our flaws into virtues and being confident in our skin., that's a mission that can take a couple of years in the beginning. Finding your bankable typecast is crucial because you'll take your headshot according to that, you'll adjust your showreel according to that and you'll find an agency according to that too.
Take time to build your showreel, to collect material, to learn how to adjust your acting according to the job you get. Corporate work, theatre, voice overs, commercials, tv and film, web series... they're all different and demand different skills from you as an actor.
There are also companies specialized in making showreels. They will give you two or three scenes according to your typecast, they will provide the set and they will edit the scenes for you. I did this in Portugal. I did a three months intensive course of acting for camera and television and by the end of the course we would get to do two scenes filmed by a professional team from the main production company in the country. I might say this course and this experience were the best investment I ever made in my career. Once again, this is my story. There are people who did the same course as I did and probably there are not so happy about the results and the investment they made. It worked for me and I loved it. Not only the scenes and the final showreel, but everything I learned about television and acting for screen, I met wonderful teachers and actors who are now my friends that I adore.
Have a comedy showreel and a dramatic one. I had one showreel where I had everything mixed up and it was so hard to understand what type of role I could play. So I decided to not share my dramatic range when applying to comedic roles, and I decided to not share my comedic range when applying for dramatic roles. I noticed people prefer my comedic reel than my dramatic one. I feel far more comfortable doing drama than comedy, but somehow people are more responsive to my comedic side than to my dramatic projects. Even if you think you have more than one type cast, please don't mix them up. It's amazing to be versatile, but you need to read your clients and give them what they want and need. If a client is 50 years old and wants a lift and firm cream for their skin, why would you recommend a product for acne. That's the same logic for your acting career.
Be manageable. Be able to be controlled or dealt with without difficulty. This is the definition you can find on google. Again, if you want an agent or to work with directors and other actors, be easy to work with. You're only as good as your last job! Stay real. You're easily replaceable. There's a saying: "Hollywood creates celebrities to destroy them". Maybe so they can come back from the ashes and have a story to tell and a film to make afterwards. Be easy to work with.
Be informed! What's on stage right now? What's the last play you saw or read? What about films and series? Who is casting what? You don't need to know everything, but a little, and if you don't know certain things, stay cool! I know there's a lot of people who act like intelectual inquisitors and make you feel bad if you don't know certain names and plays and if you don't have a critical opinion about everything but don't worry about that. Just relax and try to be informed and updated.
Have a monologue repertoire! As I am writing this, I am thinking that I do have to update my repertoire. If you have an interview with an agent, he or she might ask you to perform something and for auditions also, is very handy to have a collection of monologues and plays and characters you are familiar with.
Tell me about yourself! Get ready to answer confidently this question. Write it down, summarize it and deliver your speech a thousand times before you actually bump into someone who might pop up the question.
Buy a book about interviews and how answer difficult interview questions. People are not naturally good at interviews or at castings. They learn, they read, they prepare, they practice at home. Prepare your answers but don't deliver them in a robotic way. Just prepare as a tool to fight the nerves and then trust your preparations and allow yourself to improvise and to be yourself.
Prepare your CV and a Cover Letter. I should write a post only about CVs and Cover Letters. I think I took a while to actually understand how to format them. I found a cover letter that I sent some time ago to an agency and off course they didn´t reply! It was a long and a boring cover letter! Agents are busy people. Help them! Help yourself!
I wish I could help you more and I wish I could have a recipe for this career so all my fellow actors would be successful and we could all celebrate together but this is all I learned so far. Even agents have to seek work everyday and win clients, they have to go to interviews and to sell their actors and sometimes things don't work out as they expected. We all go through the same problems and struggles. I was talking to my Portuguese agent recently and she was so amazing and open to me! She persists and persists and everyday she faces the same routine. Trying to find work for her actors, constantly reminding the production companies of the available actors for certain projects and roles. Everyday they seek work for us, even though you think they don't, but I do believe the competition between agencies and agents is not easy and we should help the process and not stress the process.
I wish you all good luck and I hope this post has helped you in some way.
I wish you all good luck and I hope this post has helped you in some way.
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