Expert: Peter Messaline - 12/2/2010

Question
I hear that this is the hardest form of acting, but I want to have this as my career and I am willing to work really hard for it. What classes should I take in my senior year next year and what kind of colleges would have a program like this? Any help at all is deeply appreciated.

Thank you,
Brie

Answer
Not necessarily the hardest, but certainly one of the most competitive.

I believe that you are unlikely to be able to specialise so early in your career -- much better to look at getting an acting qualification and so have something to build your voice-over skills on. You could look at courses in film schools, where the stress will be on the technical needs of the set, rather than the finer points of classic acting skills.
Be aware though that people in film and TV don't much care where you were educated, if your audition and your résumé are good, and people in theatre distrust film and TV-trained actors unless they are stars.

Any acting career involves pushing and struggling to become known by people in power: film and TV are hard, voice is harder, and animation is the pits. Stay as widely-focussed as possible, and add to your hirability in all areas.
Good acting courses will be looking for evidence that you are deeply interested in acting, so anything that you are doing in your high-school years may be used as evidence. Before you apply, Google, go to websites, and look at what they say they are looking for.


Much luck
Peter M