Starting a Career as a Professional Actor

[angel_vixen]

Situation: Young man from Good Family goes to school to study International Business at the urgings of his family. After graduation and working at a good job for about three years, he decides to follow his passion and study to become a professional actor. He does have experience in acting and working backstage (general stage hand), from school

Comments

[lolmac]

Your character's biggest concern isn't getting an MFA; it's getting an agent.

MFAs aren't needed for careers in professional acting; most MFA grads want the credential so they can teach in a post-graduate setting. My own MFA program had only two people with acting aspirations, who wanted to be able to teach and direct as a backup for breaking in to acting.

In the US, most of the actors I know studied drama in college; it's also common to take additional courses while you're working/auditioning. Although careers can settle into a single track (stage, TV, film), acting courses are usually not specific to a medium. There will be an occasional course on TV work, for example, but the unique specifics of a given medium (hitting a mark in TV filming, for example, or mastering the art of multiple takes) are generally picked up on the job.

For an actor, experience, connections, talent and luck count much more than academic credentials. I suggest you read some actors' bios (usually easy to find as part of interviews) -- that will give you an idea of how much formal training, informal training, hard work and persistence go on behind each success story. Then multiply it by about 20,000 for the non-success stories.

If he auditions consistently, could he realistically do two or three productions in a calendar year?
The realism involves: can he get cast that often? And how long does the production run? For an actor, each role is a separate job. Every actor hopes that they end up in a show (TV or stage) that runs for a long time -- steady work, steady pay, and no need to hunt for more roles.

For a good look at how many productions a film/TV actor can do in a year, look at IMDb filmographies. Excellent resource.

One-off roles in TV or film are different, of course; a minor role in TV can mean as little as a single day of shooting. And don't forget commercials! Bread and butter.

If your actor is working in comedy, he might also be trying to work as a stand-up comic.

Stage, TV, film: most actors who are successful in one will try to branch out into another; luck, timing and connections control this a lot. In NYC, most jobs are on the stage; in LA, most are in TV and film. As others have said, there's really not much in DC, and I'm not sure why you're putting your character there. There's more of a tendency to do that same kind of role: leading man, action role, character actor, comedy, etc.

Age: mostly irrelevant. There are more roles for guys in their 20s than guys in their 40s; there's also more competition. On the other hand, the competition mostly has the same amount of experience (as opposed to someone in his 30s who had just started -- he'd be up against people with 15 years of experience!)