Expert: Peter Messaline - 8/20/2007

Question
Hi!!,

My name is Samantha and im 13, I've always wanted to become an actress. I told my mom and she said I shouldnt become an actress because they influence bad things and stuff like that, but that is what I want to do in life, is to act! I've been looking for help for like 2 months... because i dont know how to tell my mom that that's what i want to do and I dont even know where to start on becoming an actress. I'm really good at acting, I took drama at school, and my teacher said I should think of acting in my future, and my friends, and my family (other than my mom and dad) think that I'm an amazing actress! So, I'm asking you to help me find out how to get started. Oh, and I want to act on the Disney Channel, it looks liek so much fun, but i want to act in movies too, my biggest problem is how to start and how to tell my parents that i want to act!please help!

Thanks,

Samm .B. xox

Answer
Dear Samm,
Your mother wants to persuade you to forget acting because young teenage girls very often get enthusiastic about it, and then get hurt by the cheats who prey on anybody with a dream, and also by the hard reality of our business.

Most actors get a college qualification before becoming professional, and most of the BFAs don't end up working as actors.
It's a tough business:
To get an audition for any show, you need an agent.

To get an agent, you need to be better than hundreds of others also looking for representation. You'll need to show him your skills by being in all sorts of small productions, on stage and in film/TV. An agent is only going to take you on if he thinks he can make money off you, so he wants to be as sure as possible that you'll get fees for him to take 10 of.
If you get an agent, you're one in a hundred.

When a company is making a show for TV, they hire a casting director who sends out descriptions of the characters needed to talent agents. Each agent picks from his list the most likely to be cast.
If your name goes in, you're one in a dozen.

The casting director auditions the best from those names.
If you audition, you're one in a hundred.

Typically, for a large-ish part, the film will audition twenty actors.

If you get cast, after as many as a dozen auditions and screen tests for the part, you'll be one in a hundred, in a dozen, in a hundred, in twenty. The odds are two and a half million to one against you.

And that's not counting the people who never made it into drama school, or who came out of drama school and never acted professionally.

If this hasn't scared you off, approach your mother about acting the way you would about any job. Find out all you can about being an actor.
Go to the library and ask for books about being an actor. (In the Dewey Decimal system, they're under 792-ish.)
Google "Bobbie Gillespie" -- she's an LA casting director and a good source of information
Go to the SAG and Equity sites, to see what information they have for beginners.
With enough information, you'll know more about this career choice, and you'll be able to impress your mother by the way you're facing up to reality.

Dream your dreams, build castles in the air
-- but then go back and build foundations under them.