Читать книгу Breaking into Acting For Dummies - Larry Garrison - Страница 49

The ultimate job of an actor is to perform onstage or in front of a camera. Sounds easy, right? It can be, but performing is only part of the actor’s job. Some of the other tasks that all actors must master include

 Studying and improving their acting skills

 Figuring out how to market themselves

 Knowing how to audition

 Being able to act reliably and consistently

To even get a chance to perform, an actor first needs to learn the craft of acting, which can mean taking acting workshops, improv classes, voice lessons, or hiring an acting coach. An actor must be able to improve his or her acting skills so well that acting appears flawless and natural even though it may be artificial and rehearsed.

Of course, developing the best acting skills in the world is useless if nobody knows you exist, so the second job of an actor is figuring out the business of acting, which involves reading trade papers to find out about possible acting roles, contacting agents and convincing them to sign you on as a client, promoting yourself, and auditioning in front of casting directors over and over again until finally landing a role.

After an actor gets a role, the final job of the actor is to show up on time, perform, and listen to the director. As an actor, you bring a script to life and turn stage directions and dialogue into the illusion of a compelling story that others will want to watch.

When one acting job is over, your job as an actor starts all over again with taking classes, marketing yourself, and (hopefully) landing another role, so you can keep learning and gaining valuable experience as an actor.

Knowing how to act is just one part of becoming an actor. If you don’t know how to act or you don’t improve as an actor, you may never land a role. Likewise, all the acting talent in the world is useless if you don’t market yourself to the people who can hire you.

Besides knowing how to act, as an actor, you should also develop these additional work habits:

 Be on time

 Be prepared

 Be reliable

 Be easy to work with

 Learn different accents

 Study different skills such as karate, singing, dancing, and so on (refer to Chapter 6)

 Be willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done

Show business has no set rules. You can break every rule in show business and still succeed. Likewise, you may follow the best advice and guidelines from the experts and yet never succeed at all. The best way to increase your odds of success is by possessing etiquette and professionalism. Etiquette means that you treat everyone with the proper amount of courtesy and respect. Professionalism means that you do your job as efficiently as possible to the best of your ability at all times.