Over a career spanning 30 years, casting director Marci Liroff has cast nearly 60 feature films, including “E.T.,” “Footloose,” “Mean Girls,” and “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.” And while she’s always relied on traditional methods of casting for her job, the last few years have found her—and her fellow CDs—turning to social media to find talent.
“I’m madly in love–slash–addicted to social media,” she says.
Her obsession is an actor’s gain. Liroff frequently dishes out acting and audition advice in 140 characters or less. One of her favorite topics? Tips for using Twitter.
“It’s not like there’s a rule book, but there are definitely rules on Twitter and there is etiquette," she says. “A lot of people still don’t understand how to use it, so they’re just kind of blathering out these thoughts that they shouldn’t be talking about, or hitting me up and sending me a message like, ‘Look at my demo.’ We have no relationship, we’ve never talked before, but suddenly they find out that I’m on Twitter, and I’m just getting besieged by people that want something.”
17 Twitter Terms Actors Must Know Actors might not get blacklisted for a few minor indiscretions, but they should still remember to be professional and polite if they hope to get Liroff’s attention.
“I try [to] look at everything I possibly can because you never know,” she says. “But it’s all in the approach. They say social media really is like a cocktail party or a dinner party, and you should treat it as such. You wouldn’t just walk into a stranger’s house with your [reel] and shove [it] in their face and say, ‘Here! Look at this!’ But that’s kind of, in essence, what you’re doing.”
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