To ask what first steps I take if I want to get into acting

[Cloudylemon23]

I’ve saved up enough to devote all my time to this at the moment. Doing some work as a tv extra.
What else can I do? Any ideas please?
Any other related jobs that I can do that would help my CV?
Ps I’m not naive and know how competitive things are.
Any ideas and advice really appreciated, thanks

Another ex-industry professional here.

What would success look like for you if you did pursue acting?

1. I want to be rich and famous
2. I want to be comfortably off - able to afford to buy a house, take holidays, retire with a pension, etc - from my acting work 3)I love acting, but I'm perfectly prepared to do other things in between jobs. In fact, I have some pretty good skills already that would allow me to pick up short term contracts - eg: I am a supply teacher, consultant, plumber, etc - and I know I would be able to maintain a reasonable standard of living without acting work.
3. I don't care about being rich - I only want to devote my life to acting. It's all I want to do, so I don't mind if I spend most of my time in low paid, non acting jobs, or never have security or savings. I'd consider that a trade I'd be happy to make.
4. I want the experience of being part of a cast and working together to create a show. It doesn't have to make me money - I and happy to do a few shows a year with an am dram group and maybe do some student films. For me, it's about the fun and fulfilment.

If your answer is closest to 3, 4 or 5, you'll be fine. Go for it. But don't gamble what you can't afford to lose - think about how you'll cope without money coming in, and how you will support yourself. Don't assume you'll get work, assume you won't and have a plan for that. Think about the long term impact on your finances and career - I spent ten years as a professional actor, scraping by from job to job by working in call centres and night shifts, and this has put me a decade behind everyone else in terms of savings, salary, pension, housing prospects, etc. Being poor in your twenties is fun and scrappy. Being poor in your forties is exhausting and frightening.

I honestly don't want to put you off, OP, because I'm still so glad I took the risks I did, and had all the experiences I did. It was honestly, the most fun I've ever had, and I wouldn't be the person I am without it. I just want you to go into it with your eyes open, so you can enjoy it for what it really is, not some golden fantasy.

Best of luck, OP :)

You are living in cloud cuckoo land OP!!

You still haven't said why motivates you to WANT to be an actor.

I'm sorry, but a 30 something with no acting experience is not going to be picked up by anyone any time soon.

Sorry to piss on you bonfire, but please, come back down to earth.

Nobody who passionately wants to be an actor would come on to Mumsnet for tips of how to get into the acting business.

Op I’m not bitter I was genuinely trying to help but the further I got in this thread and the more I read the more Iam frustrated. I live and work in London. I am a theatre director and have worked extensively in tv and radio. I am well placed in the industry. I ask again for WHY you want to do this and nothing which has led me like others to believe this is some strange troll situation or you are clueless and just woke up one day and said ..Wouldn’t that be jolly fun! But regardless of genuine advice you want the quickest shortest route. You have never been on stage and I am yet to see a post from you about actually about the art form. You have never acted before.. so why ?? Regardless of the process to do it it is all very odd and either we are a bored little rich girl who will want to be an elephant keeper next week or you are a troll. You haven’t once constructively responded to advice or asked targeted questions. Good luck.

There’s no bitterness or gatekeeping here. More that I (and others), know this industry well and know those who are successful (and by that, I mean earn a living but are or are not necessarily famous) have been eating, living and breathing theatre / acting since they were kids. And still do. The OP has given no indication of this. They have not articulated at all why they want to be an actor.

Whilst of course there may be anecdata regarding those in their 30’s who said ‘The Stage is for me!’ and made it work, they are very very much in the minority. Seriously talented, dedicated and hard working people get chewed up and spat out, let alone those less single minded.

I see why people are frustrated here.

Op, you're giving the impression that you think: Oh I want to be an actor. And that's it. You can do it if you want it enough.

Unfortunately that isn't enough. You have to be talented, in the right place at the right time and put a heck of a lot of work in.

I know of a number of people who went into a good stage school, and at round about your age finally accepted that they weren't going to have a career. They'd done a few quiz shows, a few character parts at places like Warwick castle, and maybe taken a bit part. The height of their career was an entertainer on a cruise ship.
Now some of them say they're glad they tried, and it was, what they did, great fun. They're the ones who went into it with their eyes open knowing how difficult it would be.
Some of them are bitter because they feel it isn't fair.

The fact you haven't been doing amateur drama does point to it being a fad of yours, rather than a serious ambition.
Round here, I can think of 8 groups within easy reach that you'd have been welcome to audition and help. Maybe you wouldn't get a part, but there's always backstage work.

You need to get an Equity card to be taken seriously - Google how to do that.

Go to a decent drama school.

If it's still running, The Stage lists auditions - look at their website or buy the paper.

Be prepared for a lot of rejection and to end up retraining as a drama teacher.

Unless I have missed it, you have not been able to articulate why you want acting as a career and I think you need to be able to do that before you move on any further. FineWords has laid out some options and you need to really understand what it is you want in your life as well as you career before you spend money on next steps.

You need to actually start dong some acting to see if you love it and have a talent for it. AmDram or whatever you can secure. Do your homework and learn about the craft.

You need to get an Equity card to be taken seriously - Google how to do that.

Not any more. Lots of actors are deciding for one reason or another not to join Equity.

You do, however, need to be on Spotlight and to get onto Spotlight you have to have trained at an accredited drama school or have professional credits. (speaking roles)

The height of their career was an entertainer on a cruise ship.

Cruise ship work is actually very highly paid and also competitive to get into. My daughter would love to work on a cruise ship when she graduates.

Have found this thread to be an interesting read but there's something I've been curious about for years. It's well know that making it as an actor is incredibly difficult/ impossible unless you really are something special or whatever. So what I've always wondered is, how come there are so many films, programmes, soaps whatever with absolutely terrible actors in them? We've all laughed at rubbish wooden actors in various things and wondered how on earth they got the part. So how come this happens over and over again if there are so man talented people not making it? Genuine question thay I've always been intruige by!

Sorry for all the typos in my post, holding a squirmy baby!

I did a drama degree OP. I knew I didn’t have a thick enough skin to be an actor after that though and I wanted a stable job. The people I know who made it weren’t the best actors, singers, dancers but they had a confidence that almost came across as arrogance. They all went to Drama school for 1yr after the degree.

I was just thinking the exact same thing! And so many terrible accents! They seem to put the same people in everything too. There must be a ton of talented people who never get work.

There are some really odd, twisted, bitter folk on this thread who sound like they should retrain to become schools careers advisers (if that work even still exists) so they can really put their back into crushing people's dreams, and get paid for it!

@Cloudylemon23 congrats on finding your passion and interest in life, that's a whole lot more than a lot of the UK population.

As previous posters have said, in order to be seriously considered, you need to be out there doing it in some way - and even that won't be enough to be chosen by casting directors, who look at drama school grads and people with credits in real work.

The real question is, what kind of actor do you see yourself as, and what work could you see yourself in?

Are you a Kate Beckinsale, a Lucy Davis (The Office), an Olivia Coleman, a quirky Bonham-Carter type, what roles do you look at when you're watching TV and think "I could do that?"

I'm just curious because it's important to think about your market - if you can see yourself doing something, then others can be persuaded or will do also.

Excited for you even though it's advisable to heed the (constructive) words of some previous posters who are correctly advising that it's a needle-in-a-haystack's chance of getting anywhere if you don't have the right training or agent.

I think a good analogy here OP is like saying you want to be an artist when you haven't been painting and developing a unique style all of your life.

You won't get an agent without a showreel, but a showreel needs to include acting work you secured on merit not on being on the books of an extras agency.

You don't know how it feels on stage, how you look on camera, how a set works, how contracts work, how you are at learning scripts super quickly and efficiently, what the job titles of everyone in a theatre production or tv crew mean etc.

And yes everybody has to start somewhere but you're probably 15-20 years behind the people you'll be competing with.

Drama schools require auditions not just sign up. If you haven't done amdram before, only extras work, I would assume you want to be famous rather than having an absolute and raging passion for acting. Because if you had that then you would have experience by now. And if you don't have experience because you only recently decided you want to be an actor then you aren't cut out for it, that lifelong passion would have called you to such a difficult and risky vocation in life already.

I think it's incredibly unfair of you to call people bitter when they are giving constructive advice from within an incredibly competitive industry. You asked for help and you're getting it, it's just not what you want to hear.

Re which roles you look at and think you could do, at this stage you really don't know because you haven't been acting but doing extras work. So you haven't found your lane and really actors should be able to turn their hand to any role or at least be willing to do this for a long long time at the beginning of their career.

As others have asked, what is your motivation for becoming an actor and most importantly would you be happy to work in call centre / bars etc for minimum wage for your working life if it means you get to give this your best shot?

And as other posters have said, if the thread has been too critical for you then I'm afraid acting will absolutely crush you because it's 99% rejection and 1% maybes at the start of any actor's career. Sorry OP, people are just trying to be honest and MN is always brutally honest especially in AIBU. Everyone is trying to help.

Agree about the twisted bitter nature of some posters!! I would reiterate again that it’s what I always wanted to do other than the job I went into
Thanks again for the constructive advice from a lot of posters here and if I pursue this I would certainly have my eyes open as I would with all areas of life
Will follow the good advice of the constructive posters on here and thanks for taking the time regarding those ones👍 It’s much appreciated

Agree about the twisted bitter nature of some posters!

This doesn't exactly make you sound like you're much nicer than the rest of us does it. Good luck!

I’m agreeing with another poster. There’s a way of giving criticism without sounding extremely bitter! :)

No one sounds bitter.

Op - I'm not an actor but your questions would indicate that you are unlikely to succeed in this industry. I don't believe, given how basic your questions are, that you are committed or prepared to put in the leg work.

I entered a very competitive profession and appreciate what it took to get ahead.

You will be wasting your time and money.

Well I've been lurker for ages and now signed up to comment on this post!
For heaven's sake OP has a dream, it may seem unrealistic to the 'luvvies' on here who are giving her a hard time. But it's her dream and she should go for it! Lots of people change career later in life, I know a surgeon who was an engineer for years before studying medicine.
The actor who played the uncle in 'Only fools and horses' was a bank manager and went into acting very late in life, so it can be done.
I had a laugh at the 'academic ' who flamed OP who didn't spell 'academic ' correctly !!

Thank you stonebrambleboy- every single actor we see on screen or anywhere will have had to have started somewhere. There’s quite a few who have gone into it later!!

The actor who played the uncle in 'Only fools and horses' was a bank manager and went into acting very late in life, so it can be done

Sigh. Yes - BUT he'd been a very keen amateur actor and director for years before he decided to have a go at being professional. Which is precisely what a lot of us have been saying! The OP has now said of acting "it’s what I always wanted to do" yet if that was the case, why hasn't she even done any amateur drama in her 30-odd years??

And no one has been bitter on this thread. We've been blunt. With good reason based on everything the OP has said out of her own words.