None of this advice is ours and the page says whose it is. Every point comes from a video indexed on Acting Craft, our free searchable library of acting advice on YouTube, and each links to the video it came from. We chose which nine videos to pull from and what order to put them in. That is the whole of our contribution.
First, whether you need one yet
You can start without one, and plenty of work does not require one. A non-union actor can self submit for a great deal. When you are ready, the SAG website lists franchised agents, and cold calling from that list is how one working actor did it. Source.
In voice over the self representation goes further still. Audiobook narrators contact publishers directly, because the publisher has jobs coming up all year. One narrator booked 40 audiobooks entirely on her own and only then signed her first voice over agent, whose answer was essentially: if you can book that much solo, we will be a strong team. Source.
Do not chase a manager before you have anything to manage. A manager's advice to an actor planning a move to Los Angeles was to get there first, get into classes with teachers whose names carry weight, and submit for student films and anything else going. In that order. Source.
An agent and a manager are not the same job
The manager works the whole career; the agent works the auditions. Steven Nash describes high end agencies as focused mostly on pursuing auditions, while a manager handles everything around them: artistic development, financial goals, problem solving and daily contact. Source.
Which agency, not just whether you have one. One actor pushes back on the idea that any representation is fine as long as auditions arrive. He started at a boutique agency, and says that after signing with a larger one his auditions got bigger and he was considered for different work. Source.
What it costs
Managers work on commission only, usually 10 to 20 percent. Nash charges 15 percent and takes nothing else, including for coaching he gives his own clients. Higher figures are more common for developmental actors with no credits yet. Source.
Never more than ten percent to an agent. Source. Which means a manager and an agent together can take 25 percent before tax. Nash's answer to actors who balk at that: you keep 75 percent of a job you probably would never have got. Source.
How people actually get signed
The most concrete account in the library is not a pitch. It is a text message.
The reach out had no ask in it at all. An actor sent a check in to a manager she had made YouTube videos with about ten years earlier and had not spoken to since before COVID. No headshot, no reel link, no pitch: just that it had been a long time, how are you, thinking of you. It turned into a ninety minute conversation, and by that night two managers were involved. Source.
Having no agenda is what left room for the offer. With nothing being asked for, the other person gets to bring whatever they have: their colleagues, their new company, a project that needs somebody exactly like you. She walked in asking for nothing and left with a referral. Source.
But answer honestly when somebody asks how they can help. At the end of the meeting her friend asked directly. She had to think about it, because she had not come with an ask, and then said she was looking at expanding her team. Source.
And it was one of a hundred or so attempts. That text was part of a twenty one day challenge at five reach outs a day. Most produced nice replies and warm reconnections and nothing else, and the one that worked was not the one that looked most promising going in. Source.
Before you approach anybody
A bad headshot can outweigh good acting. It is the business card both at auditions and when seeking representation, and if it does not show who you are or what you should be submitted for, you may never get in the door. Source.
Shoot how you are perceived, not how you wish you looked. One working actor lists what he books, plainly: doctor, lawyer, teacher, scientist, dad, principal, therapist, social worker. Selling a fantasy version of yourself does not get work. Source.
Weak self recorded footage on your profile works against you. Acting that is merely passable is worse than none, because it is evidence. Source.
There is a stock question in almost every agent interview. Why do you want to act. The advice given to young actors: not for the money and not for the fame. Source.
After you sign
Call right after every audition. Nash asks clients to reach him immediately: he may need to follow up aggressively, casting or the agent may call him and he needs a point of view, and he always wants to know how it went from the actor first. Source.
On deferred or unpaid work, the terms matter more than the fee. Where your name appears and whether you get the screen credit may be all you take away besides the experience and the reel footage, so settle it in advance. Source.
When your representation says rebuild the website, listen. Being fond of your current site is not a reason to keep it, and a second set of eyes catches what the owner has stopped seeing. Source.
The warning worth ending on
Getting signed is not the same as having a career. Nash's phrase for grabbing any manager or agent so you have something to tell your roommate is a fool's paradise: you do not have a career, you are tied up with somebody. Source.
Watch the sources
All of it comes from Acting Craft, where the videos are searchable by what is actually said in them.
The thing they will look at
Your credits, headshots and reel, in one place you control. Build it free or read the self tape guide.
Everything above is attributed and none of it is ours. Commission rates, and every other figure, are quoted as the speaker gave them and are not advice from us: representation terms vary by market, by union and by year. If we have summarized somebody badly, tell us.