The Actors Corner -

Making your Acting Resume

Your headshot and resume package are indispensable to getting you work as an actor. As soon as the casting director turns your headshot over, the very next thing under scrutiny is your resume. Like your headshot, your resume must always be polished and professional—with your greatest strengths taking center stage.

Unlike your headshot, your resume can change often and it should. You’ll want to retool your resume based on what you’re submitting for. So the first step toward making your resume is to create an easy-to-use template. Then you can easily swap credits in and out as appropriate based on the available work. Keep a separate spreadsheet of all the roles you’ve played so that you’ll have all your choices close at hand.

Certain cardinal rules must never be broken. Don’t set your font size to smaller than 10 points (and don’t use the smallest font you can find to get around this). Choose a font that is similar to your name on your headshot. Definitely avoid using “cute” or unusual fonts, which just end up being hard to read.

Keep the formatting simple. While it’s tempting to use bold and italics to differentiate different types of information, this can quickly lead to a visually cluttered document. Make choices about which credits to include (don’t try to squeeze in everything). Proofread and then proofread again. Pay close attention to detail. No typos.

Your name and contact information should appear at the top of your resume, along with any union affiliations, if you have them (AEA, SAG, AFTRA). Some performers like to include their height, weight, eye color and hair color. This is a matter of personal preference. It is a resume for acting, not modeling, so unless your measurements are remarkable (or your headshot is black and white), it is probably not necessary. Agents tend to have strong opinions one way or the other, so either follow your agent’s advice or just do what feels right for you.

Next come your performance credits. If you’re just starting out, you may have only a small number of school or community theater productions to list. In that case, start your resume with relevant education. List acting classes or workshops you’ve attended, plus internships. (If you haven’t taken classes or workshops, do so. They are a great resume builder and can communicate your dedication.) Provide the name of the instructor, the name of the workshop (or what type of workshop it was, for example, “Acting for the Camera”) and the studio and/or city where you studied.

Lead with your undergraduate degree if it was in theater, but if you majored in something else, place it underneath the information about classes/workshops. Always include it, even if your degree was in biochemistry. Education makes you look mature and responsible, which can help when you’re up and coming.

The more experienced actor will have performance credits. If they all come from the stage, you don’t need to provide any headings. (The reader will assume they are all theater credits unless you say otherwise.) But if you’ve worked a bit on film or in commercials as well, you’ll want to provide headings for each group of credits: Theater, Film, Commercials, etc. You’ll also want to break up Los Angeles credits and Regional credits.

Organize the information into neat columns. For theater, cite the play, the role you played and the theater where you performed. For film and TV credits, cite the role, title and production company that made the film or the TV/cable network. (For student films, name the director/film program.) Space the columns on the page so that text is never crowded.

If you’ve made films or commercials that were widely seen, the credits alone will speak for themselves. But many actors get their first film experiences in student work or smaller projects that won’t have name recognition. Help your reader understand what you did. Rather than just provide the name of the role you played, also provide a two or three-word description of the role in parenthesis. For example: “Roger (fraternity brother).” The reader won’t learn a whole lot about Ralph, but even this level of detail gives your role more depth.

Consider doing the same for your theater credits if you worked on a lot of new plays or experimental projects. Adding the descriptors “(young mother)” or “(baseball coach)” can help the reader understand how to think of you.

If you are particularly proud of your work with a specific director or your play won an award, this is something you can include next to the name of the play/film. Again, keep it brief. For example, you can follow the name of the project with “d. John Smith” or “Ovation winner.” (Of course, only include the award if it was for you or the production overall. Don’t cite an award for Best Costumes if you weren’t the costume designer.)

Your credits do not have to be listed in chronological order and you don’t have to provide dates. This is especially helpful when you’re tweaking your resume to submit for different types of roles. If you’re auditioning to play a college student, you’ll want your Ralph credit right at the top.

Next come your special skills. These can help you a great deal, especially if you don’t have a lot of performance credits. Everyone has special skills. If nothing springs to mind, ask yourself a few questions. Do you speak another language? Practice yoga? Are you good with animals? Good with kids? Don’t limit this area to stage combat skills or dialects—though if you have those, great. Brainstorm with friends about the things you do that they find funny or unusual. Can you break dance so badly (but with such conviction) that you have them all in stitches? Can you do a great impression of a duck? If you can do a good cartwheel, say so.

If you have a driver license and a car, include this in your special skills. The same goes for dual citizenship. This is the opportunity to let casting directors and producers know that you can travel if a project requires it.

For those of you with adequate performance credits, education and training should appear at the bottom of your resume. Include your highest level of education and specify the workshops or classes you’ve taken using the guidelines above.

Once you have this all in place, congratulations. You have created your resume template and have your first usable resume.

Now that you have a template in place, you can respond to each casting call with a slightly tweaked document. You may want to prepare separate resumes for film, commercials and theater. Even within those categories, you may choose to have different resumes for musicals vs. dramas. Consider the available role and place the most relevant credits at the top.

Now it’s time to print. Your resume should be printed on a laser printer, or an inkjet printer that is so good no one can tell the difference. Use quality white paper. (Colored paper will only come back to haunt you, as it will immediately reveal if your resume is not perfectly trimmed.) You will need to trim the paper so that it measures 8x10” and fits perfectly to the back of your headshot.

If you can afford it, print your resume directly onto the back of your headshot. This does require getting headshots duplicated on higher-quality paper and owning a particular type of printer, or going to Kinko’s. (Visit the Reproductions Web site, www.reproductions.com, for information on affordable printers that can do this without bending and destroying your photos.) But it absolutely makes the most professional impression.

For those that can’t afford this option, staples are still an acceptable standard. (Double-stick tape and glue are also options, but they often lose their adhesive quality over time and you don’t want to risk the headshots and resumes separating.) Attach the resume to the back of your headshot with great care. Strategically position staples so that they lie at the exact borders of your picture, but don’t block any text on the other side. This can take a few tries. Save any near misses to submit for student films or other amateur projects.

Casting directors, agents and producers take note of every detail when meeting an actor for the first time. By following these steps and keeping rigorous with the rules, you can present a resume that makes you look professional, awake and ready for the acting career you deserve. Take it seriously—and others will take you the same way.

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