What Is An Acting Résumé?

    When an actor goes to audition, he or she is usually asked to bring with them a headshot and résumé. The actor's headshot is a photo representation of the actor, usually 8 x 10 in size. Stapled, glued or printed on the back of the actor's headshot is the actor's résumé. The résumé is a document that lists an actor's career accomplishments and abilities, such as the actor's background, training, and acting work history.

What Makes For A Good Résumé?

   The number one rule to writing a great acting résumé is to keep it simple and straightforward. Many times, actors like to stock their résumés with lots of unorganized or unnecessary content. This is a big mistake. That’s because, the people who look at résumés—casting personnel, directors, producers, talent agents—have to look at many different résumés at one time. They don’t have lots of time to evaluate a convoluted, messy, unorganized résumé. Therefore, a great résumé should be very easy to read and easy to understand. Casting directors should be able to have a clear understanding of the actor’s experience within 5-seconds of looking at it. A good résumé answers, in a concise, upfront way, the amount of training and experience a person has had. The résumé also explains the skills and abilities the actor possesses.

What Should Go On My Résumé?

Experience

The most important aspect of the résumé is experience. Actors should list any plays, commercials, films or television programs they have performed in. Experienced actors should limit the experience portion of their résumé to the experiences that are most notable, career-defining and eye-catching. Meanwhile, inexperienced actors who may have very little experience, should list all the relevant experience they have, including church skits and high-school performances.

Training

Actors can list any relevant performing arts training in their ‘training’ section. For instance, if an actor has taken acting classes at a local, community theater, the actor can choose to make note of that training in this section.

Special Skills

Actors should list any special skills they possess. For example, if you know how to speak Spanish, you should put that on your acting résumé in a ‘special skill’ section. That way, if there is a casting director seeking an actor who is fluent in Spanish, they will be more likely to choose you.

 

What Should NOT Go On My Résumé?

Irrelevant Experiences

In order to keep their résumés concise, actors should leave irrelevant experiences off of their résumés. This would include non-acting or non-performance-related experiences such as which courses the actor took in college; unless of course the actor took theater or acting courses in college.

Lies

To pad their résumés, some unscrupulous actors attempt to add experiences they don’t actually have, such as claiming to have been in a movie they were never in. Lying on a résumé is a big no-no. Actors who get caught have their careers damaged. And, the actors who don’t get caught cheat themselves out of actually gaining the true experience needed to become a better performer.