​How to find your dream acting roles

There are hundreds of thousands of acting roles filled each year in film, TV, theatre productions and more around the world – but how do you get the parts you want?

29th October 2017
/ By Andrew Wooding

How to find acting roles GETTY


Mandy Newis here to help.


What do you want?

First and foremost, any actor or actress must truly ask themselves what they want from their acting. Do you want to be a part of interesting stories? Are you interested in understanding more about yourself through a role? Do you want to make people laugh? Do you want to act live in front of people or on TV? Do you want to earn a steady income or can you manage with feast to famine? Or is performing in any capacity your only criteria?

One of the most important actions behind any success is to create an incredibly clear objective of what you want in extremely specific terms. Scrutinise your choices. Why stage? Why film? Why TV? What are the real reasons? What pays well? What pays regularly? Picking apart your dreams will only serve to bolster them in the future.


Follow careers

Once you've determined what kind of performance you're truly interested in then you must begin to investigate who does it, whose work you like and soak in the detail. How did they do it? What was their first acting gig? What worked for them? Follow the careers of those you aspire, big, small or in between for inspiration.


Find the creatives whose work you like and stick with them

Presumably, like most people, you'll have a favourite TV show, film or theatre production. You'll also have a group of people that you enjoy the company of or work best with.

Well, somewhere out there is a collection of folk who have the same tastes, work ethic and sensibilities as you. Go out and find them. Look for them during paid jobs or opportunities. Network as much as possible. Find your "tribe" and stick with them!


Accept no limitations

This is perhaps the most important and yet the most unrealised by many actors and other creatives. Despite what you may have been told by society and the world at large about your class, race, gender and more, there are not limits. Only the limits you believe in. As Arnold Schwarzenegger said: "The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent."

Mandy News says: Determining what you want to do, understanding how others have done it and moving in the circles of those who make art you enjoy without imposing limitations on yourself is a surefire way to succeeding in bagging the type of roles in the type of productions you want. Go for it!

Comments

Sabine Rossbach

08-11-2017

Indeed - the last point IS the most important one <3

And this platform supports that big time. Thank you for that mandy.com :))