Expert: Peter Messaline - 12/9/2008

Question
I have been pursuing acting for about 4 years.  I am sag and aftra.  However, I have been doing more waiting then acting.  I just sit and wait.  My days consist of me hanging out alone.  I am bored, and feel like I am wasting my time.  I have a degree in advertising.  I am going to be 31.  I need to find something to do on the side of acting.  A job of some sort that still allows me to act.  If I wasn't acting, I would be working in advertising as a copywriter....  Any recommendations?

Answer
Congratulations on getting SAG and AFTRA in four years!

Where are you based? I assume you're in one of the big centres -- is this somewhere you moved to, or were you born there? I ask because there are often more chances to work in smaller centres, where the absolute number of jobs is smaller, but the acting population can be smaller disproportionately.

Don't sit about! Anything is better than that. If you behave like a depresssive, you'll become clinically depressed. Doing anything at all is better than sitting waiting. Take up knitting, learn Polish, volunteer at the local Food Bank.

And pump your promotion -- researching your contacts and keeping track of what you wrote and what happened will become a fulltime job, and one with some jollies. If you read what you wrote about yourself to impress a specific prospect (and do be specific!), you will begin to realise that, yes, you are hot stuff!

Look for access to the casting and production resources in your area. Look for film schools, where you could work on student productions under a SAG Agreement. Look for independent producers and where they gather. Is there an association they belong to locally? Pitch them ideas for projects -- you're a writer, write a short piece with no location demands, lots of sexy lighting and camera possibilities, and a small cast wearing their own clothes, and stay with the production if it's picked up.

And do stay with it. They do say that success, defined as getting enough work to live on, is simply waiting for the competition to get tired out!