Paul Russell

16 Reasons You’re Stuck Doing Background Work

Casting director Paul Russell challenges actors to follow their goals and not get stuck in a rut doing background work.

Why Non-Union Actors Should Submit For Union Projects

A non-union actor can audition for and be hired for a union project. And depending on the project plus governing union, the actor can easily be hired either as union or non-union.

Why Actors Act Against Their Best Interest

We all, at various detours of our journeys, pull ourselves into these destructive weigh-stations of negative reflection. Yet when that nagging inner-voice routes its phantom calling to our cranium, we sometimes have the tendency to wallow in the false comfort of empty self-pity.

Why Actors Misinform Other Actors: Ignorance or Deceit?

Never—until I jumped the casting table from actor to director, casting director, and teacher—had I realized how much inept, incorrect, assumed information about the entertainment business and how-to-be-an-actor is spread by incompetent, misinformed actors themselves.

Are You An Acting Con Artist?

Why can’t some actors be original? Why do some take it upon themselves not to be actors but imitators?

How To Gain Acting Success Like Edie Falco

The pace to a self-sustaining acting career varies. More often than not, the journey for actors being able to “do what they love” and nothing else without financial worry is a curving pot-holed course of great distance traveled until smooth straightway is rode.