Q: If there’s a project in preproduction you want to join, but you don’t know if they’re casting, should you ask your rep to keep an eye out, or leave it and let them do their job?—@Meowforum, Backstage Community Forums*
The short answer is: Yes! While this question is very specific, I think there’s an underlying lesson here that applies to your career as a whole: You are the person most responsible for your destiny. Yes, you’ll absolutely need to rely on outside help and should be seeking it out, but you need to be the one steering the ship. Recently, I was speaking with young students at a New York City drama school, and many of the questions revolved around this same theme. I told them repeatedly, “You have more power than you realize.”
READ: How to Get an Acting Agent
Because our industry is set up in a way that requires many people to compete for few opportunities, young actors tend to forget that their representatives are working for them, not the other way around. Those representatives only make money when their clients make money. Imagine if you hired someone to buy paintings to hang on your walls, but they would only be paid if they found something you actually bought and hung up. Wouldn’t they need to know if you didn’t want any red paintings? Conversely, what if you only wanted blue paintings, and a friend happened to tell you there was a sale where all of the paintings were blue?
Don’t you think it would be smart to tell the person working for you about the sale? If you didn’t, they could potentially spend time searching for the wrong kind of paintings—ones you’ll never buy; and they won’t make a dime through you. If you never tell them what you want because you’re afraid to bother them, they’re going to forget about you and your blue paintings, because their job involves finding paintings for many other people aside from you. Help them help you. Remember, they’re busy. You can’t just bug them for the sake of bugging them. Instead, respectfully give them as much specific information as you have about a project you’d like to join to make it as easy as possible for them to help you make it happen.
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This story originally appeared in the June 3 issue of Backstage Magazine. Subscribe here.
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