by Paul Russell
How Often Should Actors Contact Agents & Managers?
“How often should an actor send a submission to an agent when seeking representation?” was the question that came flying at me this week during my master class. I got a cartoonish jaw-drop gape from the questioning actor when I replied, “Every other month for 12 months.”
There’s reasoning for repetition:
While visiting a popular talent agency office I perused multitudes of actor mailings trash bound. At this agency an intern opens and filters which actors get an agent’s glance and which actors’ headshots are to be hauled away in a Hefty bag.
While perusing the landfill bound P&Rs I noticed an actor’s mailing that required a once over by the agents. The actor is a regular on an ABC series. His cover letter stated his want to divorce his present representation. His resume was being tossed. I alerted a thankful agent.
Often at agencies, incoming actor inquiries (e-mail & land mail) are filtered by a young assistant or a collegiate intern. The juvenile gatekeepers are told by agents to only save actors, “who look interesting,” or “have good credits.” Trusting entertainment-industry knowledge and aesthetics, of a post-adolescent whose knowledge of “looks interesting” and “good credits” is limited to BuzzFeed is a serious flaw in an agency’s assembly line of procuring new clients. It’s a deficiency actors must be aware of and aggressively overcome.
Your resume may have training, projects, directors or other information a talent representative respects while an early 20-something intern or assistant is woefully ignorant of and foolishly questions, “Oskar Eustis? Never heard of him.”
Contact talent representation more than once; preferably every other month for 12 months. If your submission(s) have been misplaced, or overlooked, you’re giving your marketing materials more opportunities to be seen.
Now you may be thinking; But Paul, agents will think I’m being rude, obsessive, compulsive… They’ll hate me. Guess what… if the agent(s) eyed your materials once and trashed you; they weren’t interested in your offering to begin with. So what are a few more mailings to someone who wasn’t previously interested? But you could change that. Also, how do you know the agent even saw your materials?
Plus another reason I advocate re-sending several times is that if you have new project announcements on your resume or heralded in your cover letter (an actor must always, always have a business-formatted cover letter written in the natural voice they speak to friends and family with) there’s something for the recipient to discover about you. You’re working. Which means you’re a valuable asset that an agent can champion.
The Tipping Point, brilliantly explores a study demonstrating the point at which someone stops saying “No” to an inquiry and relents with a “Yes.” You could hit that tipping point with someone with multiple mailings (just don’t do it every week or month). Don’t believe me? Ask my current literary agent how many times I contacted him before he offered me representation: 3 was the magic number.
So send. But make sure that what you’re sending is professional, clearly defines you, and doesn’t have a lot of prose bullshit or gimmicks. If so, you’ll be always dumped into the trash. Or worse placed into the Freak File.
This industry is as much about talent, and resilience, as it is about, image, image, and image. Never give up on your marketing. And never let your marketing be less than your best performance.
Paul Russell’s career as a casting director, director, acting teacher, and former actor has spanned thirty years. He’s worked on projects for major film studios, television networks, and Broadway. Paul’s taught the business of acting and audition technique at NYU, and speaks at universities including Elon, Yale, Temple and the University of the Arts. He is the author of ACTING: Make It Your Business – How to Avoid Mistakes and Achieve Success as a Working Actor. For more information, please visit www.PaulRussell.net.
Seminar Recap