How do they do that?

Thousands of  people every year decide they would like to become an actor.  They see the newest stars of all ages on the screen and dream and ask themselves, "How do they  do that?" Soon after a question appears on Yahoo (for the hundred-thousandth time) "How do I become an actor?"

I have  answered this question over a hundred times, I am sure.  There is one answer for children, pre-teens and teens:  The way you become an actor (given the facts that you have the look, talent, charm and intelligence) is that your parents have to make it happen for you.  Most starry-eyed youngsters cannot believe that is the way.  Why, they have not even told their parents they want to be actors.  They have heard about someone who posted You Tube videos and an agent or producer saw them and signed them up.  There are also the urban legends about a producer seeing a young person in the mall, etc. etc.  These stories are stories. They become legends perhaps because one person was "discovered" in such a manner.    One out of the literally hundreds of thousands world-wide is not even in the realm of possibility as odds go.

I recently did a little research about the background of young people who became well known actors before they were  18.  Their stories are remarkably the same.  Their parents provided every opportunity for them to become prepared and enter the business.  This is what I mean by parental support: one or both parents work like mad promoting the kid and his or her career. And let's not forget that the kid is talented, charming, photogenic and intelligent.  Finally, they get a part that draws attention to them and their talent.  And that's it.  That's how a youngster becomes an actor. Oh, I must also mention that in many cases these youngsters have been acting since they were very small children.

For adults, how to become an actor is a different matter.  Of course the aspiring actor has to have all the required qualities.and then the actor must build their resume and promote themselves in the business. It is a long and difficult road that only a very few have what it takes to travel.  Indeed, most of the aspiring actors that I advise do not become actors.  Some try for a while and give up.  Others devote their lives to the task and meed with some modicum of success.

What about acting school?  Won't I have a better chance of becoming an actor if I go to acting school?  Well, that used to be the case, but now that so many of us have studied the process of becoming an actor, we have learned that only a tiny fraction of acting school graduates ever become actors.  And, at the same time, a great many people become actors without going to acting school.   I'd say that acting school is more important for stage actors than for film actors.  Film actors are helped by the mechanics of film making-carmera lenses and filters and angles, and by editing and special effects, and by music and sound, and on and on and on. Not that film actors don't have to have great talent.  Of course they do. But it is enhanced by film technology more that a stage actor's talent is enhanced by stage technology.  It is much more likely that a film actor has had no formal training than his stage counterpoint.

Well, I don't want to get too far afield from my thesis.  To become a preofessional actor, a minor must have the full support of one or more or her parents if she is going to succeed.  You can't do it by yourself, and anything less than the parent(s) being fulling involoved in their kid's career will not work. 

I wish all of you aspiring actors out there great success. Nothing would make me happier than for you to become rich, famous, and honored.  God bless you, Doc

Remembereing Roy

One of my first acting students and a very fine and devoted actor, Roy Milton Davis,  died last Spring.  It took several months for me to get the news and I was shocked. I did not know that he had been ill.  All I knew was the high--spirited, boundless optimism about his work that he always communicated to me.

Roy was one of just a tiny few of my students who really was an actor.  He lived the actor's Spartan life from the time he left college in 1974 until he died this year. Outside of some off- Broadway plays, he never had a large role. But he was never daunted.  He was an actor and he worked his entire life to be the best actor he could be.  I was pleased to have been able to see a couple of his roles in TV series these past couple of years.

Roy and I wrote often. We discussed the nature of acting and how it should be practiced. We did not always agree, but we always came to an understanding.  He sent me several  short essays he wrote about acting.  The following is one about playing extra roles and how important it was to create a character and give a complete performance:

    "To re-coin an old expression,"There are no small parts,only small actors."When you give your all to a given acting task it is noticed by the production company,no matter how small and insignificant the role may seem to be.People who play extras are often not thought of as legitimate actors.We do sometimes have to tolerate questions by a passerby like,"Are you one of the actors,or are you just an extra?Just an extra.I sometimes want to retort,"What is your position in the relative hierarchy of your own profession?You are a nobody,as well.And if you are working at all,you probably hate your job anyway.""At least I am being paid to do something that I love and I will not be "just an extra"forever."While you will probably be a bitter nobody,forever."When assigned to walk by in the background,I will assign myself a purpose in walking by.Maybe looking for an address.Maybe going back home because I forgot something.Maybe looking for cigarette butts.Maybe rushing to the subway because I am running late for work.Maybe I am vacating the premises because I want to avoid being questioned by the police.Anything.I can easily get away with simply walking by,but I like to go a little more in depth with my characterizations.Just I aim to do with principal work.We are creative artists in our own right and no matter what the size of the role,our efforts at creativity are appreciated,even in instances when we are cast in writing masterpieces."

Roy loved being the creative artist he mentions above. It was his reason for being. He is greatly missed.  Above all, Roy was an ACTOR.

How much should it cost to become an actor?

Sorry for the long lapse in posts.  It is good to be back.  It takes some motivation to add a post to the blog and for some time, as you can see, I have not been properly motivated to do so.  But now I am.

I recently read an article about Senator Marco Rubio (R, FL) in which he was quoted as wanting the government to pay for degree programs for all students.  While I adamantly disagree with him, this would solve the problem of the high cost of education. Well, it would for the student for the moment.  But the high cost would create a new entitlement and add to the national debt and deficit. 

I don't think going to college is a Right anymore than I think becoming an actor if one chooses to is a Right.  What I do think is that colleges under the thumb of the teacher's unions, and  under their own bureaucracies have become preposterously expensive. University professors are far over paid and the cost of operating a college or university has been artificially inflated to astronomical levels.  That being the case, few but the very wealthy can attend college without government help mostly in the form of student loans. 

But the prospective actor who graduates college with a huge debt of student loans is almost certain not to succeed as an actor. The burden of debt most liable will force the student out of acting and into something that has a regular pay check.

Acting schools are as bad as universities when it comes to inflated costs. Why should it cost thirty or forty thousand dollars a year to study to become an actor when it is almost certain that you will not become one?   What is to be done about the cost of acting training when both the colleges and the academies are so expensive?

Indeed, why isn't acting training free?  And I mean without the government paying for it as Senator Rubio desires.

The only answer is GREED.  We find that when a well known, successful actor teaches as a college or academy, he commands a large fee.  I submit that he only needs bare expenses and that he should teach essentially for free.  He doesn't need the money, and his instruction is not guaranteed to have a positive result. So why does he charge at all?  Whatever happened to the traditional and noble idea of serving the art of acting?

At my website, http://tao-of-acting.org, I offer all the instruction in how to become an actor that I can. And I offer it for nothing.  Acting and the theatre have been my life. They provided me with a modest income, and a modest retirement. But, in fact, I do not need any more money. So everything I have to offer is free.  As it should be. 

I remember as a young man meeting Sir Tyrone Guthrie, founder of the Stratford Ontario Shakespeare Festival and the theatre that bears his name in St. Paul/Minneapolis.  And I remember his writing that his work was to SERVE the theatre and that he believed that as a service to GOD.  On my website I write a little about this in my essay "Theater, Religion, and Football."  Back on the issue, however, when one works as a service, he does not do it for money.  So my info is free and my acting lessons are free.

I believe that Free is the right price given how next to impossible it is to succeed as an actor.  I invite all to visit my web site and to contact me regarding questions about acting and having a career as an actor.

What Are They Thinking ?

 Lots of email coming my way asking if the writer has a feasible plan to become an actor.  This is followed by a list of their second choice career and asking which should they major in and which should they minor in,  The answer is simple.

If they are worried about the uncertainty of an acting career and want to have a 'back up," then they should major in the back up and forget about acting,. The people who succeed at acting are those who have to do so because they can't do anything else.

These emails are written,no doubt by young people whose parents insist they go to college and have a backup. The parents know full well that the backup will always succeed over acting because it takes too much sacrifice to be an actor. The parents are counting on the kid wanting a plush life that they are not going to have while struggling to become an actor.

The only feasible plan to become an actor is to act in everything possible that is legal.  Actors act, and  to be successful at acting, the aspiring actor must act as much as he or she can. This builds a terrific resume, shows devotion, and determination and talent.  When someone says to me that they want to be an actor but don't know what to do, I am dumbfounded.  Wouldn't it occur to them that what they must do is act. Here and now.  It is what actors do.

And the aspiring actors do not need an agent to act.  They can just go do it in amateur and semi=professional companies at once.  It may take a while and they may have to work their way into the good graces of the companies by doing tech work or front of the house work. But if they are talented, they will get their chance and do some acting.

What young people are thinking, of course, is that there is some magical trick to becoming an actor and all they have to do is discover it.  They think agents and colleges will give them that trick and they will become actors.  Sadly, this is not true.  The  trick is to be an actor by acting.  If it means moving to a city that has more opportunity that where one is currently living, then move.

Aspiring actors should not have to ask about back up careers or how to get started as an actor. They should just go out and act. If it means going to college to have the opportunity, then pick a college that does a lot of plays.

Deja vu all over again

I mentioned last month that young people wanting to become actors keep making mistakes that will doom them to failure.  Here is another one:  the student who goes to college to study acting but also is a student athlete and has signed with an agency because they want to get started as an professional as soon as possible.  Now this person has so much going on that they cannot possibly do any of  them well.

My advice is to slow down.  It is a huge error for someone to be in too big a hurry to become a professional actor.  These are the ones that get scammed and lose thousands of dollars to the scam artists just waiting for them. But you have to slow down for other reasons as well.  You can't just leap into being an actor.  I know someone you heard of did it, but you have to realize that you are not that someone.  So you need to learn to be an actor and get a lot of experience acting before you try to be a pro.  It is a sad thing for you to watch TV and see all those actors your age.  Why didn't you do that? Simple. Your parents didn't make it happen for you.  If you had had the ability to be a teen TV actor, someone probably would have noticed and supported your dream. But you may have been (and you may still be) dreaming with no foundation for the dream to come true. 

The foundation is:  experience in lots of plays, training in lots of professional classes, training to be charming and personable, and developing an attractive look.  Remember attractive is only partly being good looking.  It is also being charismatic. Some where in this blog is my port on that subject. 

If you don't have  all the parts of the foundation, work on the ones that are missing and get the foundation as solid as you can.  This will take a number of years.  It may take more than your high school and college years.  It took me twenty years after college!  Now I have to insert here that I did not spend all my time trying to become an actor.  I had insured my failure to become a pro by not constantly working on it, by taking a job that gave me a fairly comfortable life style, and by getting married and having a family.  But since acting was connected to every aspect of my life, the opportunity finally care around, and I got an audition. Because I had a great foundation, I passed the audition and got cast as a wedding dancer in Duchess and The Dirt Water Fox. That led to another audition, and because my foundation was even better than before the wedding dancer audition, I passed this audition as well and got cast in the role of Krater in "How the West Was Won" TV series with James Arness.  I went on to be in several other films and TV series. I became a SAG actor (in those days SAG and AFTRA had not merged).  Now some twenty plus years from when I had to stop acting, I still get residual checks for my previous work.

OK. Got it?  Slow down and get a solid foundation. Then when opportunity knocks, you will be prepared.  Remember 'luck' is when preparation meets opportunity. God bless, Doc

Doomed to Failure

Sometimes I cannot believe it is happening.  Aspiring actors from all over the world, of all ages and of both genders write and do things that doom them to failure as actors.  Just recently, for example, I had spent a month or so corresponding with a young lady who wanted to audition for my free acting lessons. She understood that I only teach students who I believe have a chance of becoming professional actors.  A high school student, she postponed her audition until school was out.  She assured me how serious she was about acting and so I made an appointment for her to audition.   When I talked to her and her father on the phone, they both said they would be at the audition. Come the day of her appointment and she does not show up! No phone call, just a no show.  I cannot stress how important it is for anyone under 18 to get their parents on board about their acting career.  If they do not, they cannot possibly become actors. No matter what scared her away from her audition, she should have called to say she could not make it. By not showing she is doomed to fail. The professsional word has no time to waste on such behavior.

Another behavior that I hear about all the time is the aspiring actor who has an interview at a talent agency but does not know what to say when they get there. These people are all inexperienced, have read nothing about acting as a career, and have never been in a play. They always ask me how to dress, what to say, do they need a monologue, what monologue should they do, etc, etc, etc.  They never tell me the name of the agency and in many cases I can tell it is one of the scam agencies  and they are walking into a trap.  They know nothing about acting and so they are doomed to fail or worse to be scammed out of hundreds of dollars. Just telling me the name of the agency could make the difference for them.

Related to these people are the scores of those who write me and ask me to tell them the name of an agent who would represent them.  These uninformed writers are those who believe the myth that agents make people into stars.  I  never answer these with the information they desire.  These usually are those who have never acted but know that they are greatly talented, or those whose  friends and family say that they should be actors.  Somehow it never occurs to these people that they should be in a school or community theater play. So I tell them to do that and hope they are not too much trouble for the directors of such plays as they may audition for.

Well, it is a sad thing. The more I deal with aspiring actors, the more I am aware that almost none of them, and there are thousands of them, will ever make it.  They are doomed to fail if not by such behaviors as those above, by just not having what it takes.  It is not easy. There is no step by step formula to becoming an actor. There is no magic secret nor boost that will advance them to the next level (whatever that is).  It does not rely on luck. Those who believe such things join those that fail.

To become an actor, one must act.  Make sure you have been in enough plays that there is some indication that you have ability.  Then, if you have the other qualifications, you may not be doomed.

A bit of this, that and the other.

This --  Aspiring actors of all ages still don't get it when it comes to choosing a monologue for auditions or classes. An aspiring actor has to have a vast background in plays that he or she has read, attended or performed. It is from these sources they are most likely to find a good monologue for their needs. That is numero uno.   Dos, they need to pick a monologue that is from a role that they could logically be cast in.  Ultimo, it is the performance of the monologue that makes it a good one.  There is no such thing as being overdone if done superbly. 
And well done monologues are filled with the dramatic qualities that the innocent keep requesting that their monologues have. They need to read other posts about monologue on this blog from a year or more ago.

That -- Inexperienced and uninformed aspirants keep wanting to know how to get an audition, how to get discovered, or how to get a big break.  Sad. Truly.  Those who get auditions are experienced, informed and in the case of youngsters, guided by their parents.  An agent is almost always needed.  These people are always looking for LUCK that will make them an instant star like someone of whom they have heard.  But,of course, they are not that someone. They need to read the previous post, "You have to have it!"

The other -- Heard on TV a couple of days ago about the futility of majoring in the arts or going to professional school unless you were truly in the top five percent. It is not cost efficient to go to college or professional school unless you are way ahead of most everyone else to start with. Forty grand a year is outrageous for an education, especially for a field in which it is so hard to get a job.  I remember a young fellow from a couple of years ago.  His parents borrowed to the hilt to send him to two years of Acting School.  He completed the course. He has done no acting since. Seems to have lost interest in it. Now there is putting your parents into poverty for a good purpose!  Fist of all acting school is no needed by the truly talented and second of all college is not needed by the high school honors grad who wants to be an actor. What these kids need is lots of experience and some career management by their parents. Worked well for the talented and handsome Brad Pitt whose mother yanked him out of college to take a professional job.  Aspirants have to be realistic.  As I said at the end of the first paragraph, you have to have it or you ain't gonna do nothin' in this business.  I love all of you, but it is the truth.