What matters here is the hard work you are willing to put in and the fact that you will overcome whatever obstacles are thrown your way. And there will be obstacles! It’s all part of the business.

Here are some tips for pursuing an acting career:

1. Be prepare for everything. Prepare yourself physically. You have to look your best at your every audition. To achieve this, you have to take care of yourself. Improve both on your physical and mental capacity. It will also help if you will practice rehearsing dialogues or plainly, speaking in front of many people.

Your physical appearance is an investment and even though you may not like it, it does matter. It’s not beauty that matters, it’s the fact that you look like you take care of yourself and that you have self-confidence. We don’t all need to look like Angelina Jolie to have a successful acting career.

You must also be ready emotionally. You cannot get everything you want in an instant. You might experience a lot of rejections first even before you get your first callback. It will be best if while on the process of going through auditions, you have a part time job that can suffice your every day needs. You can also treat this phase as something fun and enjoyable. This way, you will not take the rejections too hard or too personal.

2. Learn the ropes. If you want to be taken seriously as an actor, present yourself as one. It will help if you will meet the right people, especially an agent who will represent you and find you audition schedules. You have to know where that action is taking place. You don’t necessarily have to live there. But it will be less expensive if you do. If you can find small gigs on the locations where the auditions are usually going on, then that will be much better.

Establish friendships with the people that you will meet along your audition rounds. You never know who will bring you luck and fortune in the future.

3. Be the master of the craft. Watch a lot of movies and learn how the actors attack their roles. Read aloud dialogues from scripts. Read books and references that can help you improve and where you can learn a lot from.

4. Be careful in hiring an agent. Do not believe those who will make you pay even if they still haven’t found you a job. That’s when they are supposed to get money from you. They get certain percentage as commission for the work that they helped you find. They are your allies. They must know your strong points so that they will instantly think of you for roles that fit you right.

Take all of these tips seriously and realize that the road may be rough, but if you keep pursuing your dream and you have a positive attitude, it can happen!

There are many determinants that will help you get the best acting agency to fit your needs. Whether you are going for Disney Channel auditions, Shakespeare, CBS, or Spielberg, here are a few tips that you might want to try out as you get that all important agent to represent you.

- Before scouting for agents, prepare your acting resume. Have you had any previous roles on stage, on screen, or in a movie? Do you have any education in acting? Have you attended acting workshops? Who organized the acting workshop, and who conducted it? The resume is highly important not only for the acting agency, but for the production company as well. It can be their only basis for assessing you before you step into the audition.

However, because different acting agencies follow different resume writing styles, put all these points in a list. You only need to get them ready so you can see the breadth and scope of your experience.

- Agencies will pick up talents who are in line with their missions, visions, and goals, so do some research on the agency before applying to it. Better yet, make a list of agencies, and go through each agency on the list so that you can narrow your list down.

There are signs that you should watch out for. Since you already have your acting experience summarized in your itemized resume, you need to see what your particular expertise is, and use this as the basis for selecting which agency you’ll apply to. Is your acting style similar to another actors? Then look for that actors agency and apply to it.

Another sign you should watch out for is the pool of talents in the agency. Does the agency support stage talents, television talents, film talents, or all kinds of talents? Make sure that you know the agency well enough before making any applications.

- Don’t go through the casting couch, and get a reputable agency. You can get a job faster with one.

The Agent

Probably the person who will have the biggest effect on the career of an actor is his agent. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, agents are impossible to live without. By definition an agent is someone who finds work for an actor at a fee of about 10 to 15% of whatever he earns for that job. But an agent is much more than that in reality. An agent is the actor’s mouthpiece. He’s the one who tries to display the actor in the best possible light through his own charm.

Agents have to be very good talkers and have personalities that are easy to get along with. As an agent they will have an extensive list of contacts from producers to directors. They use this list to get an actor every chance that they possibly can. Then, after the actor gets the job the agent works on the terms of their contract to make sure that he gets the best deal possible. A good agent will have the actor’s best interests at heart, knowing that the better the deal he makes, the better he makes out as well.

Casting Director

Then there is the casting director. This person can make or break an actor’s career. If an actor can’t get past the casting director he has no chance. Casting directors are specifically hired to find talent for the movie, show or play, whichever the case may be. This is the agent’s first line of contact. These are the people the agent sends photos and résumés to. These are the people the actor auditions for. Without passing the audition with the casting director, an actor has no chance to meet the next people in line who will determine whether or not he’s going to get the job.

Actor’s Manager

After that we have the actor’s manager. A manager has a slightly different role than the actor’s agent, though there are some similarities in the duties they perform. Both work for the actor with the actor’s best interests in mind. A manager will basically try to find the actor work, give him advice and try to guide his career. He may encourage the actor to try for certain roles and tell him to avoid others. An agent may also do the same, but he is more concerned with getting the contract. Managers look more at the big picture and long term career than the day to day operations. Managers are the ones who give the actor their face that they will show to the public.

Producer

Finally, there is the producer. A producer is the one who handles all the behind the scenes details of a production. They bring together the directors, actors and writers and try to make it all work, in spite of the many different personalities involved. It is important that the actor is able to work well with the producer or he can find himself out of work very fast, contract or no contract.

In the world and life of an actor, there are indeed many people who he will count on to make sure his career gets off the ground and hopefully makes it to the heights he aspires to.

Be Prepared

When you finally get that all important interview with an agent, you want to be as prepared as you possibly can be. You’ve probably brought copies of your best headshot along with your résumé. You also might have even brought a couple of monologues with you, just in case the agent wants to hear you read something by asking you to "show him what you can do."

But before it even gets to that, the first part of the interview is usually very awkward. The truth is, the agent at this time has probably already seen your headshot and résumé and has probably even seen you in some production, maybe a local play. But at this time the agent wants to get to know you personally. He wants to see how you present yourself to people in a business setting. Since his job is getting you work, he wants to see how professional you can be.

Tell Me About Yourself

So the agent asks you to tell him something about yourself. What do you say to him? You should prepare ahead of time for this question because you don’t want to be taken off guard. Just as you have prepared everything else (your headshots, résumé, and monologue) you want to prepare for this question. This is the opportunity to get some experience as a writer. Here you will create the exact monologue that you want to describe yourself. You should memorize it and practice it just as you would a movie script until you have complete confidence in reciting it. This may sound goofy, but it does work and it is important!

What Do You Want Him to Know About You?

To do this, think about what you want the agent to know about you. Don’t just spit back your résumé. The agent has already seen that. You can, however, mention a few highlights. If you have good training with a well known school, mention this. Your agent is going to want to know what you’ve been doing. Tell him about any lead roles you’ve done. If not a lead, pick a role you’ve played that you particularly enjoyed playing, even if it was a small part. Talk about what excites you about being an actor. Tell him what you love about theater or television or whatever medium you’re most interested in. Tell him about any interesting hobbies that you have. Agents want to see that you’re well rounded and not just one dimensional. Well rounded people usually make good actors. Tell the agent what you feel is unique about yourself. Keep your monologue to under a minute. Agents don’t have a lot of time and want to get right to the point.

Finally, remember one thing. If an agent has invited you to an interview he is already interested in you so don’t push it. Act natural and be yourself. You will find that by not acting, you will have your best chance at getting this agent to represent you.

I hope that helps!