AACTION / TABB :: View topic

Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2007 9:32 am Post subject: Advice

Dear Tom,

What advice would you give to someone who has great potential to play great, memorable roles...a god given talent so to speak, yet has no performing arts training what so ever. How does someone like this get an agent to take the risk?

Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2007 8:51 pm Post subject: Re: Advice

This is not going to be good news, I'm afraid.

There is no way you can persuade anyone on the basis of your belief in yourself.

If you have professional-level experience, that might help, but if not, taking a number of different classes with reputable teachers will help persuade others and get you referrals if the teacher thinks you can be useful.
Look at the TAAS website for a listing of great teachers.

You may find that you really do need to learn the simple skills to support your gift. You will also discover that you need a ladder of small, obscure roles to polish your skills before graduating to the meatier stuff.

Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 2:00 pm Post subject: Re: Advice

Useful thought in today's Globe and Mail from Stephen King: "Talent is as common as table salt; What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work." for most of us that hard work begins in acting class, voice and movement training and a lot of unpaid experience. It's not as flashy as a "god-given gift" but it's more like the truth. Make yourself worth selling and an agent will be found to help you do that... it NEVER starts with the agent, except in modeling. I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of succesful professional performers and a couple of mega-stars. I can name maybe TWO OR THREE who didn't follow the path as Taxxman described it above. The good news? The journey is a ton of fun.

Posted: Sun Apr 15, 2007 8:08 am Post subject: Re: Advice

That is a great quote about Salt. How often when leaving the room have we felt like a pillar of same?

Training is the beginning of everything, and unless you only want to be with a commercial agent and be sent out to vie against the crowds, you will have to learn a thing or two. You might well believe that you have a gift, but when confronted with the camera, your gift will most likely be invisible unless you learn to control that environment. Technical skill combined with natural talent is a combination that is appealing to everyone and reliable on set - and therefore bankable.

Anthony Hopkins said that the best advice he could give an actor starting out in our business was this: "Television will make you famous; Film will make you rich; but Theater will make you!"

He was talking directly about relationship; emotional continuity; text analysis; breathing; posture; movement; vocal modulation, intonation, and accent, etc., etc., and etc.,

I trust your getting the point! No amount of confidence will get you past the close scrutiny of professionals in the business who are looking to surround themselves with similarly talented and well trained professionals.