Jason Pugatch - Starting Your Career as an Actor

Jason PUGATCH

Copyright 2012 by Jason Pugatch

This book was originally published under the title Acting Is a Job: Real-Life Lessons about the Acting Business.

All rights reserved. Copyright under Berne Copyright Convention, Universal Copyright Convention, and Pan American Copyright Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Allworth Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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Published by Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

Allworth Press is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., a Delaware corporation.

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Cover and interior design by Mary Belibasakis

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pugatch, Jason.

Starting your career as an actor /Jason Pugatch.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-58115-911-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. ActingVocational guidance. I. Title.

PN2055.P87 2012

792.028-dc23

2012019781

Printed in the United States of America

For Rebecca & Sylvie Mey,
the best women I know

I owe not only a considerable debt of gratitude, but many, many free lunches, to Ethan Angelica, my extraordinary research assistant. Thanks are due to Jamee Freedus as well, for additional research.

Sky Spiegel, Rose Kernochan, and Val Day, each of whom believed in this project, encouraged me to press forward, and helped me navigate the maze of the publishing industry.

Each and every actor interviewed for this book. Without your forthrightness, this book would not be complete. And indeed, many thanks to the casting directors, agents, playwrights, directors, and producers who spoke with me so candidly.

Tad Crawford, Delia Casa, and the books original editor, Nicole Potter-Tailing, who left me to my own devices.

Lastly, my parents who have stood by me throughout all the tumult my creative choices have brought, and my wife Rebecca, who has picked up that torch and carried it bravely forward.

This book was originally published in 2006 under the title Acting is a Job: Real-Life Lessons about the Acting Business. This is a revised and updated version of that book. Most of it is the same, so if youve got that one on your bookshelf already, you may want to hold off on purchasing this one. Really, all seven of you. But for this revision, I didnt just slap on a fresh coat of paint and new title. There are new interviews and follow-ups with those I first spoke with five or six years ago. Theres an entirely new chapter on Los Angeles, as well as a new section on resources for the actor.

Much has changed about the acting business in the last six years. Were in a highly digitized industry, contracts have changed, entire ways of doing business no longer exist. About a week before I handed in this manuscript, SAG and AFTRA voted to merge into a single union (we dont yet know how that will impact contracts). So, where the facts and statistics quoted within this book have changed, I have updated them. If I havent, they will be noted as such.

But in most other ways, if not every, the business is the same as it was when I first wrote this book, the same as it was a hundred years ago, and a hundred years before that. Thus, I have left intact all of the original interviews, some of which may have moments that feel a little dated (auditioning for a show that ran several years ago, for example). Still, though some of the specifics are different (less envelope opening, more emailing of headshots, for example) the song, as they say, remains the same.

A Brief History of the Actor
[or How to Respond to the Statement, Im Doing a Restoration Comedy, Mom)

The Lay of the Land, Part One
The Neon Lights May Need Replacing: About the Theater Industry

The Lay of the Land, Part Two
Hurry Up and Wait: The Film and Television Business for the New York Actor

... No matter how much (or how little) acting
experience you may have, you can start pursuing an acting
career right now... and this book shows you how.
Breaking Into Acting for Dummies

If you believe that quote, stop reading now. Close the cover, put this book back on the shelf, and have a wonderful career. Write me when youve made it.

If you think that acting, like other professional careers, may take at least a modicum of craft, talent, looks, luck, skill, emotional stability, guidance, patience, and endurance, then read on.

First, there are the stereotypes. Take your pick. Actors are:

1. Lazy

2. Dumb

3. Overpaid for their work

4. Waiters

Well, you cant win em all.

Certainly some actors have no training, some have no talent, some are stupid, and some of them make a lot of money. You could probably cross out my laundry list of prerequisites, with the exception of luck and endurance, and have an accurate accounting of the necessary skills an actor must have. Luck and endurance are the two most important factors in an acting career.

Theres another buzzword. Career. Not a day on a soap opera, not three days of extra work that got you your SAG card. A career. The daily event to which people devote their working lives. A career is a very difficult thing for an actor to have.

For an actor, its also difficult to judge whether you actually have a career. Youre a lawyer when youre arguing in court: You have a career. Youre a doctor when youre looking in someones ear with a scope: You have a career. Youre a teacher when youre explaining Euclidian geometry: You have a career. Youre an actor when youre performing on stage, in television, or in a film.

But you do not have a career.

Acting is a perpetually freelance business that fools people into thinking better of it. It entices with celebrity culture, awards shows, and superstar salaries. But it is, at its core, a job-to-job industry.

The winter after I turned twenty-six, I did not have a career. Success was fleeting, and though I had done some bit parts on television and a commercial, career longevity was a long way off. I wondered if an MFA in acting from a recognized graduate program was a good idea, so I sought counsel from a former college professor. Expecting a conversation on the value of education, the art of acting, and the great skills I could inherit through study, I broached the subject of going back to school.

My teachers response was pointed and simple.

Unless youre a model, he said, theres no work for you until youre thirty.

I am not a model.

I went to school. In the first month of training, we were forced to perform and outperform each other constantly. Acting schools are a weird blend of summer camp and the military. Youre with the same incestuous group of people all the time. Youre laughing, crying, emoting, moving, breathing, dancing, and drinking together. Between class, rehearsal, and performance, youre in the theater sixteen hours a day. Youre exhausted and constantly competing for roles, stage time, and validation.