Five Tips on Building Your Acting Resume

As an actor, your resume is one of the most critical tools in helping you get work. It helps a casting director understand not just your experience, but the type of work you’re interested in, the skills and training you bring to a project, and your goals as a performer. It, along with your headshot, is a critical first step to getting into the room to audition.

There are many different formats out there for acting resumes, and this guide is not intended to convey a “one true way.” Rather, this will help you make informed decisions about your resume choices, so that everything you say with it is intentional. Here are five tips to help you start a resume, or refine the focus of your current one.

2. Be sure not to forget the basics. List your name prominently, your contact information (email address and a phone number, but do keep safety in mind – never list a home address and consider using a service for voicemail), your union status, the age-range you play, your height and basic measurements or sizes. When it comes to ages and sizes, be accurate. Nothing turns a casting director off more than bringing in someone they thought was perfect, who is nothing at all as advertised.
4. Break your credits up into sections – include seperate areas for film and stage work. Lead with the one that has the most impressive credits or the one you are most interested in pursuing. When you have more credits, consider creating a seperate resume for each, or maintaining two combined resumes (this is more common in New York City than in Los Angeles), leading with a different category depending on the job you are submitting for. Other credit categories that may be applicable include “television,” “industrials” and “print.”
6. For each credit list the name of the production, the name of your role, and the production or theatre company. You may also wish to note the director, the theater, and the nature of the role (i.e., “lead”, “supporting”, “featured”, “under 5”). Do not list background work. People do it all the time, but it is anything but a help to them. Within a section, credits should be listed chronologically, starting with the most recent.
8. Include a section for “training.” Include acting courses, and courses in other skills directly useful to the actor – voice, singing, dance, movement, stage combat, etc.
10. Create a section for “special skills.” This section should include anything you can conceive of a character doing on stage or screen, and that you do well enough to be paid to do. Some good examples of special skills include sports, specific types of dance, languages, craft hobbies, accents, skills with animals and potentially relevant workplace experience. This is also a good place to list whether you have a driver’s license, a valid passport and/or an academic degree (be sure to note your major). This is also the part of your resume where it’s okay to get a little creative, as this section can often lead to additional discussion int eh audition room. And the longer they want to keep talking to you, the better it is.

If you’re jsut starting out, or have recently completed school, you should feel comfortable listing productions you were in, in school. As your credits improve, don’t make your font tinier, but remove older, less relevant credits from your resume. Readability and accuracy should always be your prime goals.

Good luck!