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

I'm also in this industry, there's lots of really good advice here. Although I do find it funny how some people think getting into voice acting is easy, it's not, (unless you're quite lucky) it also requires hard work and training, it's also a very saturated market even for professionals.
You could also try looking on castingnow.co.uk.
It might be worth you trying a bit of free work on small film projects if you could. I know quite a few people who started this way and do reasonably well, if not in the mainstream public tv way.

Yeah I agree with Thoughtless. I think OP is researching for an essay or publication.

Waiting for some more bitterness

You are mistaking bitterness for voices of experience. Even I know more about the industry than you and I'm just the partner of an actor.

You are hopelessly naive and unrealistic and people are just trying to give you advice about what you should be looking at if you are serious. So,ehow I doubt you are.

Many shows seem to use the same Actors again and again too.Many of them seem to turn up in almost every show on TV! I get that they need to have a guaranteed name/face to attract viewers but no wonder its so difficult to get parts for people trying to break into the Industry!

Oh and I'm certainly not bitter because I'm doing very well in the career that I was passionate about from a young age.

I do get annoyed when my incredibly talented partner gets passed over for parts that are perfect for him in favour of someone less talented and I get really angry that trained, professional actors are paid such a pittance.

What sort of acting are you drawn to, OP? Stage, screen, tv? Do you dream of being on stage at the RSC, or doing gritty TV drama, or are you set on Hollywood?

Do you go to the theatre regularly? Join an amdram group for starters.

when people don’t take seriously my words or the words of others and importantly don’t listen, I get a little narked. It’s an anon forum but if those of us in the industry were to identify ourselves I’d hope you would be more than a little embarrassed

How dare the OP not just meekly go away and give up.

An actor’s life definitely ISN’T for me, but even if it were I think I’d be put off by the “you must LIVE AND BREATHE acting from the age of 4 and nobody can act unless they follow the route we have prescribed, no deviation, oh yes and you have to passionately WANT to act with every cell and be prepared to explain why to anybody who asks, in a way they deem acceptable, and have no other interests” doctrine.

Yes, I get that it’s a difficult life and most people who succeed follow a particular route. So in that sense much of the advice is practical. However you must see that some of it comes over very closed shop and gatekeeper-ish?

Controversy alert: acting is not that hard compared to studying for one of the professions (medicine, law, accountancy), which is one of the reasons why so many people want to act. However, nobody is telling aspiring solicitors that they have to live and breathe the law and be reading contracts in their spare time from the age of 9, are they? It sounds like mere trade puff for the acting profession (that is a joke for anybody who has studied law and may not have lived and breathed law since childhood).

Well said! * Iamthewombat.*
Some of these posters are taking themselves very seriously.
It's acting for God's sake not brain surgery.

It’s the “take my words seriously, or else, because I am IMPORTANT” that I find the most irksome. You’d be laughed off most threads for that.

Wombat you're not comparing like for like. A solicitor can generally be in permanent employment. An actor can't. A solicitor doesn't need to wait tables or take on a variety of temping jobs while attending yet another audition for a part you won't get. A solicitor will be paid pretty well. An actor won't. A solicitor will be based in one office. An actor can end up touring the country for a couple of months staying in shitty digs. It's very hard for those outside the industry to get it.

Are you any good at acting op? Has anyone other than family or friends told you that you can act? Just curious

Yes, I get that being an actor and being a solicitor are different jobs. What I highlighted was that, irrespective of the scarcity of paid work for actors, the actual work of acting - standing on a stage or a film set, pretending to be somebody else - isn’t so difficult as to warrant the layers of mystery some posters seem to want to surround it with.

Nor are people aspiring to one of the more traditional professions given the same short shrift as the OP when they ask questions on MN. I’m a successful accountant. If I respond to an OP from somebody considering retraining in accountancy, I’ll share my experience but I don’t insist that the OP marks my words and obeys my advice because if she only knew how important I am in real life she’d be embarrassed etc etc.

Nor do I kick off when she has failed to explain, in detail, why she aspires to the mystical sisterhood of accountants when she has not lived and breathed finance since childhood.

DD did a three month foundation course at BOVTS, it was a summer thing. She's at uni but has always acted, done NYT etc. She wanted to see if she had the skills to have a chance in acting and whether full time training was for her. There were a few older students there, dipping their toe in the water.

It doesn't replace drama school, in any way ( there's no showcase) but it lets you know more about the intensity and demands of training. She said it was incredible and she learned loads.

I’m pretty sure if someone posted that they were in their thirties and fancied becoming a brain surgeon, how do they do that, do they need to study? Can they do a one-year course? Can anyone recommend a good brain surgeon school? They’d be given a short shrift too.

I get what you are saying, and you and some other posters have given practical advice based on your experience. What I don’t like, though, is the way in which certain posters have poked the OP with a stick and admonished her for just not WANTING it enough and not being able to articulate why she deserves to share the aspiration of acting with her betters (who have all been to the right drama schools and been reading Oscar Wilde plays since they were four).

Why does she have to prove to internet strangers how much she wants to act? Why does she need to be firmly put in her place by somebody hinting at how embarrassingly (for the OP) important they are in real life? She came here asking for advice. It is possible to give advice without ripping the person to shreds. It appears that because she has asked about acting, as opposed to medicine or law, she somehow deserves ridicule.

Incidentally, I read it that she asked about the one year course because until that point nobody had explained the context in which people usually do them (eg after a drama degree, if I’ve understood correctly). When the coat has been spelled out to her, it’s not surprising that she’d ask about quicker and cheaper routes, even if she later discovers that they aren’t suitable.

It's very hard for those outside the industry to get it.

It is and I've been on a steep learning curve since I met my partner. I was so shocked at the number of auditions he goes to, called at short notice by his agent, where it turns out to be a waste of time - and he can't turn them down because he needs the work and it would piss off his agent.

The pay is even more shocking. On Mandy.com where he often looks for work the jobs are separated into paying and non paying for a start, and the paying ones regularly pay about £150 for a whole day's filming.

The other thing is that people, like the OP, seem to think that they can just go into acting without any actual experience and rock up at auditions after a few night classes and a couple of extra parts. That is insulting to trained professional actors in the same way that if someone rocks up at a rugby match and thinks they can do my job (sports physio) because they give their partner a shoulder massage sometimes.

Sent too soon....

What pisses actors off is that everyone seems to think that they can do the job, just like everyone thinks that they can write......or teach

A solicitor will be paid pretty well. An actor won't.

You clearly don’t know any regional criminal lawyers, do you? 😂

Comparing it to wanting to become a brain surgeon in your thirties is beside the point. There is a specific well-attested career path to becoming a surgeon of any type — IF you have the grades, the ability to survive the lengthy course of medical training, good health, and an ability to survive long, stressful shifts and move around for rotations and keep passing exams etc, then by and large, you can become a consultant in your specialism. You do not need to prepare to spend years working as a waitress or in a call centre while trying to get hired once you have fully qualified from a good stage school, hoping you catch someone’s eye at an audition. You do not confront the same level of indigence, and you do not need the same degree of luck, contacts etc. Becoming a brain surgeon is had, but a different type of hard.

But the key difference even before that is that you can’t explore brain surgery in your daily life before you qualify, even if it’s all you’ve ever wanted to do, whereas if you desperately want to act, there are all kinds of ways of managing to act, at school, in am dram societies, at university, in short courses etc etc. And even shy of that, going to see plays. It begs the question — if the OP has always wanted to be an actor, why hasn’t she found ways of being around theatre before now?

plunk Yes, I do actually. None of them are on minimum wage. None of them work on a profit share basis (which often means earning below minimum wage).

It did all get a bit "the craft of an actorrr darling, do you know who I am?!"
The thing is, so much is about luck and timing, as well as talent.

I have known many actors over the years, from drama school/ live and breathe ones to people who did a few night classes and community theatre, or sketch comedy.
A lot of aspiring actors, as mentioned, give it up in their 30s, so actually unpaid work experience for older actors is quite, if not easy, then certainly not impossible to find.
Obviously it's hard to make a living but if you can do something else for money you can still work around it.
The thing is, it's easy for luvvies to scoff but someone living in say, Keighley or Bridgend, who has never even known anyone go into showbiz will really not know where to start. I Googled what sort of actor training is available in my area and there are classes but no drama school. I still wouldn't know which sort of class to pick, I still might want recommendations from people who know.
I do think OP should look into getting some am dram experience though-she might find she hates it after all!

Don’t start giving us that old bollocks about the craft of acting, which requires magic and years of training. Some people are talented, others not, but it is way down the list of intellectually challenging and skilful professions.

Which is why so many people want to do it. You don’t get comparable hordes of people fighting to become tax barristers, do you? Why is that, do you suppose?

That was in response to @Leighhalfpennysthigh