It may be early for Christmas, but go ahead and make a list for Santa anyway. Tell him which agents you want to work with, whether or not you want to freelance or be exclusive, and if you are looking for commercial representation as well as legit. Making a wish list for Santa certainly won’t guarantee a contract, but it will force you to think about what you want from an agent: the type of representation that you are looking for, whom you want to work for, and the ideal terms of the relationship.
“You have to know what you want,” said actor Paul Rolfes. “For example, are you looking for overnight success or a long, steady career?”
Take charge of your career by first knowing what you want. One-size-fits-all representation doesn’t exist. You may think that signing with a large, bicoastal agent such as William Morris will put you on the road to superstardom. Maybe, maybe not. A slightly smaller boutique agency such as the Gage Group might work harder for you.
Who Loves You, Baby?
In order to figure out where you fit, you first have to know your market. Actor and career strategist Scott Glasgow has helped several actors define their niche. He encourages students to figure out their “type” and what roles they would be best suited for before approaching agents. “First define your prospective clients,” he said. “Know who would buy your product. You may be right for extra work on ‘Law and Order’ but not a principal role.”
The next step is to find agencies that represent your type. A few experts cited K. Callan’s The New York Agent Book as a good starting point. Callan’s book profiles nearly 75 agencies and notes some of the prominent actors each agent represents. Brian O’Neil, the author of Acting as a Business and Actors Take Action, advises actors to pay particular attention to an agency’s client list because it can clue you in to what the agency is looking for.
“Look at the level of clients they represent and that will give you a sense of the accessibility of the agency,” he said. “Where are those actors working? Film, theater, television? It will give you a sense of where their clients are working and where you would be working with those agents.”
If you are a member of the Screen Actors Guild, you can also check out the agency’s client list at the union offices. And yet another way to learn about an agency is through word-of-mouth. Fellow thespians may be able to tell you about what they’ve heard or their experiences with a particular agency. The Internet is another great tool. Google an agent’s name and you’ll often find actors’ comments about the agent on various Web boards and blogs.
Equip yourself with some basic knowledge of a particular agency before you decide to approach it. You should be able to answer three questions about the agency: What types do they represent? What is their client level (celebrities versus working actors)? And what type of work do they handle? Knowing these things could save the time, money and frustration associated with broad mass mailings.
What actor hasn’t picked up a contact resource like Who’s Who in Show Business and dutifully sent a headshot and resume to nearly all of the New York-based agencies listed? And if you hear back from two or three of those, you will be considered lucky.
The response that you gather from mailings can be indicative of your marketability, but only on a superficial level. An actor’s success with mailed submissions is heavily dependant on his or her look and resume. If you are a character actor with a few college credits, you are less likely to be called in for an agent audition than a model-type who has worked on “Sex and the City.” This is not to say that the character actor is any less talented than the model-type, nor does it mean that an actor shouldn’t first attempt to do a large mailing. An agent’s response to mailed headshots is usually a form of instant gratification: either you have the goods or you don’t.
This isn’t a reason to abandon mailings altogether. Mailings are a good way to establish initial contact with an agent, but you shouldn’t rely on them as your sole means of finding representation.
Show ’em Your Stuff
“The best thing to do is to get yourself in a show so that people can see your work. It gives you something to write to an agent about, and it gives them something to see,” said Rolfes, who signed with a top bicoastal agency shortly after performing in a graduate showcase at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.
Invite agents from your target list to see you perform in a play, showcase or staged reading. If the agent is unable to attend, follow up after the performance by sending a photo postcard. Tell the agent you’ve just finished a staged reading or showcase and send an invitation to a future performance.
“You are going to have to be ready for it to take some time. You hear stories of overnight successes, but they are very rare in comparison to the number of people trying to make it in this industry,” Rolfes added.
Some actors choose to jumpstart the process by attending paid seminars with agents at places like Actors Connection. Again, this does not guarantee a deal with a super-agency like CAA the next day, but it could offer you a chance to meet with an agent one-on-one.
Actress Taji Coleman signed with Epstein, Wyckoff, Corsa and Ross after attending a paid seminar. Coleman admits that she was initially skeptical about such seminars but her investment has paid off. “There is a benefit to them,” she stated.
Asked whether she thought these types of seminars could help newcomers, Coleman replied, “I would recommend it depending on what level you are at in your career. If you are green to the business, I wouldn’t do the workshop because it will show in your work. I would say, study your craft and learn more about the business first.”
It’s important to be selective in which seminars and workshops you attend. Target agents you think would be receptive to meeting your type. Glasgow also urges actors who attend paid seminars to send their headshots to the agent before the event and to send a thank-you card the following day. You want your name and face to stay fresh in an agent’s mind.
The Second Date
Why the emphasis on following up? Part of it is the numbers game. There is no shortage of 5’6,” 23-year-old brunette ingénues or 5’10” character males who speak perfect Brooklynese. Whatever type you are, there are already 200-plus more of you out there looking for work in New York. You must distinguish yourself from the pack.
“Most actors drop the ball after the initial contact,” Glasgow stated. “It is going to take an agent six or more times to think of you before he asks you in for an audition.”
Photo postcards are an indispensable, yet often misused, component in the actor’s arsenal. Both Glasgow and O’Neil advise actors to use the postcard as a means of informing an agent of their progress. Don’t send an agent a postcard just to remind him or her what you look like — let the agent know what you’re up to. Were you cast in a new play? Did you get a callback for a paid performance? Or were you requested to audition by the director or producer for a specific role?
These questions fall within O’Neil’s three levels of credibility for boosting an actor’s chances for getting an agent audition. “The most important thing is to announce that you have been cast. The second is the callback,” he said. “The third best, but still highly valuable PR is that you were requested by so-and-so to audition for the project.”
Like Rolfes, O’Neil believes the best way for an actor to get in good with an agent is for the agent to see the actor’s work. Even if you don’t book the job, report your callbacks — they show progress. Callbacks for high-profile projects, O’Neil notes, tend to make a strong impression on agents. “If someone received a callback for Phantom of the Opera or 42nd Street, then you know that they have talent. It makes a statement about your ability.”
Don’t Call Me, I’ll Call You
Agents may not sound like an actor-friendly lot — actors spend seemingly endless amounts of time courting the right agency via mailings, showcase invitations, postcard follow-ups, and still no audition. “Most people will not get an agent right away,” O’Neil said. He added that it may take some actors two years before they get their first agent while it may take others ten years before they sign their first contract.
O’Neil points out that agents invest in their current clients and are hesitant to take on unproven talent because it can be costly.
“A lot of actors do not realize how much time an agent puts into finding them work: scrutinizing the breakdowns for every role, thinking about what actors are appropriate for it, sending the headshots over,” he said. “Agents really put a lot of time into an investment that is purely speculative. Even if the actor that you are working with does quite well, it can take a lot of time for that to happen.”
Agents need to know that you are working or at least have the potential to work before they’ll be willing to invest in you. “Agents earn their money,” O’Neil concluded. “In this business, work begets work.”
