“In commercials, I always talk to actors as if they’re a product,” says Jeff Gerrard of Jeff Gerrard Casting. “What is your product that you’re putting out there? What are you selling? Is your product groomed and up to date?
“Some people don’t realize that at the beginning; they think, Oh, it’s a commercial, I can just go in there and smile and make my eyes bright and I’ll book it,” he continues. “You might get lucky and book one or two, but in the long run, if you want a full-on career, you want to make sure that your instrument is fine-tuned constantly to reflect what’s going on.”
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A number of trends in the industry over the last handful of years would seem to forgive such an assumption from the fledgling commercial actor. For one, consider the bend toward what Gerrard calls everyperson “Americana” in casting.
“A number of years ago, there was this big trend that came in, and everybody was using the same terminology: bring it down, make it small, throw it away; we want to make it conversational, subtle. These were all the terminologies that directors were using because they didn’t want something as big and over-the-top as they did in the ’70s and ’80s. They just wanted a slice of life,” he explains.
What to Do After You Book a Commercial Vicki Goggin of Vicki Goggin & Associates Casting agrees, elaborating that the change came as a strong reaction against the formulaic acting seen across the medium for years. “A lot of actors are sort of fighting against this because they’ve been force-fed for so long to drink the Kool-Aid of the predictable formula read, doing bad old commercial tactics, [feeling] like they have to do a button to their audition or they have to ‘billboard’ the product.”
That more appealing, reality-based approach is seen in the casting, too. “It’s a wonderful time period that we’re in right now because it is reflecting America,” Goggin says. “It’s nothing but diversity right now. Not only is it diversity in ethnic backgrounds, but gay, straight, bi, transgender—in the last year and a half to two years, I have gotten so many real people jobs.”
Courtesy of Vicki Goggin & Associates Casting
The business side of the industry has also shifted to reflect the trend, both because it saves clients money on the front end and because it allows them to cast ostensibly real people for that “slice of life.” Talent agent Chaim Magnum of Lemon Lime Agency estimates that in the last five years, 70 percent of Los Angeles–area commercial gigs have gone from union to nonunion.
“Everything’s pretty much digital at this point, so advertisers decided that they didn’t want to spend the big money the way they do on broadcast commercials that are running on national networks and cable. They started shooting with smaller digital agencies, and it just kind of picked up steam,” Magnum says. A commercial agent for the last 25 years, he adds that nonunion work has always been in the mix, though typically for local restaurants and other family businesses. “But we’re now seeing the biggest advertisers in the world have gone nonunion, and I don’t see them coming back to union quite yet.”
How to Get Union Commercial Work Still, commercial actors at all stages of their career should take note: The casting trend may be aligning with the real person and the nonunion actor, but to Gerrard’s first point, longevity still relies on one’s training in the craft. “If you want to sign up and have that tag on your person that says ‘actor,’ I want to know that you’ve done your homework; I want to know that you’ve trained; I want to know that you’ve studied.”
Goggin says that theatrical actors and comedy and improv performers with that training have caught on, too. “We want real people in commercials, but it’s understood that actors are also real people,” Goggin says, adding that the most successful actors bring their training and technical know-how into the room or onto the self-tape in tandem with “the authentic nooks and crannies of their own personality.”
Courtesy of Jeff Gerrard Casting
In a world where more than 125 people audition per day in a streamlined, two-day casting process for 20 roles, it’s more important than ever to stand out from the pack—quirks and all.
“The whole trend right now in commercials is just letting the actor be the character,” Goggin concludes. “Yes, their skills and their training come to the table, but also everything that makes them uniquely a real person in real life is absolutely perfect. It’s the same person in the lobby as in the studio; it’s the same person who came up in the elevator; it’s the same person who drove there.”
This story originally appeared in the May 21 issue of Backstage Magazine. Subscribe here.
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