What steps should I take inbecoming a succesful actor?

Question

I am a smalltown guy dreaming big dreams, I am gradguating out my small highschool in wisconsin in 2009. I want to persue and achieve a successful acting career. Idk if i should go to california rightaway and join one of the many acting schools they have or try to get into a big acting collge like NYU, but remeber im coming out of asmall highschool and with my average grades and low budget i probaly won't get accepted. Any actors/actresses/movie producer or anyone who has connections to holywood, please help me or if you want to talk to me my email is ([e-mail]) any info that you feel would help me would be greatly appreciated. PS graduation is coming fast!

Answer 1

try and visit this site: http://www.hollywood-opportunities.com/h...

they help out aspiring actors and actresses without scamming them! you should sign-up and see the fast results. My friend got casted in Disney as an extra already! :) they also have great content that tells their visitors tips and useful information about the industry.

Answer 2

try auditioning.  you can look for casting calls here: Hollywood-opportunities(dotcom)

Answer 3

You've got to find the right people, start with making home-made movies, put them on YouTube, anywhere to be noticed. Tell me how this goes, I too am going into acting, but I am going into it for the women. :)

Quoting the words Val Kilmer told me,

"Courage and Determination".

I have followed those words and they have brought me accomplishments.

Edit:

Also, I'd not trust any online sites, trust me, like casting calls, there are many scams' out there.

Answer 4

You are so not alone. You would be surprised (or maybe not) at how many young people say almost the exact same things in the same way. Sometimes I'm torn between telling them to start by getting some training and telling them to just go get a head shot and go to some casting website and start submitting. But reason wins over me and I have to tell you that if you really want to be an actor, you should first put your big rush to do it to the side and slow down. Build your base first. The competition is fierce and if you don’t prepare yourself really well, you will become just another statistic of the many who WANTED TO, but never made it.

I even created a new video on my site on the exact same topic: The reasons why most aspiring actors never make it.

You might have heard in school when you talked about Abraham Lincoln, that he is the author of a famous quote. He said, "If I had three hours to chop down a tree, I would use the first hour to sharpen the axe."

If you don't sharpen your axe first, there will inevitably be a time when you will have to stop chopping and sharpen it, so you might as well do it now.

What does that mean? Get some acting training. Find a good school and a good teacher to help you learn how to act.

While you are doing that, try and understand what it really means to be an actor, what actors do...really while they are trying to get work, how little money most actors make, why actors struggle to make ends meet and how successful actors are able to continuously get work. You need to learn business skills, networking skills, communication skills and a lot more.

When you decide to become an actor, you are making a decision to run your own business. Now I know you are young, but if you can start to grasp these concepts now, you will position yourself ahead of your competition.

On the other hand if all you ever aspire to is to do background work or something like that, then don't worry too much about all that stuff I just said and just go and try and get extra work. That's fairly easy to get considering that the majority of all acting work is background work and smaller roles. But you have to know that if you really want to make a big splash as an actor, sooner or later you will need some real experience. Extra work is great in my opinion at the very beginning just to start and see how things are on set and how real actors prepare and perform and to see how set directions are given, but it will not make your career. In fact, some industry professionals discourage it for those who really want to pursue a serious acting career.

The thing is, you can do both if you want. You can go to school, take acting classes and still work as an extra or even do community theatre or student films while you are learning the craft. It will be extremely difficult if not almost impossible to get any speaking roles in Hollywood or anywhere else unless you have training. In fact, it will be difficult to even get someone to look at you unless you have experience and an agent in Hollywood.

At any rate, have a look at this page on my website for aspiring actors. It has 23 links to pages that have to do with starting your acting career.

You'll find a lot of helpful information there that will make you think about how you can get your acting career started including steps to get started, 17 things you can do fairly soon to start getting work, ways to promote yourself, how to get the money together to fund your career, how to get an agent, 29 ways to promote yourself to get noticed and why acting school is so important. http://www.actingcareerstartup.com/teen_...

Good luck!

Tony