1. Love Acting. It sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised by how many actors focus on the negative and allow the indifference of the business to validate that self-deprecating voice in their heads. “If you didn’t get the callback you must suck.” No, you must focus on the art and love it. You do this by engaging in the joy of acting on a regular basis in classes, in scripts you write and shoot, and in the work you do on stage. If the extent of your acting is in an audition room a couple times a week for 10 minutes at a time at best, you’re not choosing to fall in love with it. Love it for it’s own sake.

2. Get a Life. You need a day job. Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, Denzel Washington, and Meryl Streep all have day jobs. Whether it’s child advocacy, Sudan, parenthood, music, or women’s issues, they all have passions that extend beyond show business. Sometimes their day job is acting! The point is they all have full lives that keep them engaged in their communities in ways that are fulfilling. If auditioning and occasional acting on set is all you do, you probably have a more narrow view of the world than an artist should. You’re limiting yourself and your art. So, get out there. Get a job. Volunteer. Make time for friends and family. Travel (even if you don’t have a lot of spare cash). Experience. Your art is bigger than the business, and it requires fuel or else it gets stale. Living a full life is your power source.

3. Care for you instrument. You must eat well, sleep well, and – during at least one workout a week – engage in exercise that isn’t driven by vanity but by the desire to connect your mind and your body. This business is stressful. It requires constant self-care. If you’re putting things into your body that deplete your physical and emotional energy, the artistic expression that comes out of your body will reflect that depletion. You won’t be able to do the work you need to consistently do. This goes for spiritual engagement as well. You have to be feeding your soul – whatever that means for you. In a town where business is our master, we have to find ways to nurture our spirits and find something bigger than the industry and ourselves. You can only find joy and engage in deeply connected work if your heart, body, and spirit are tuned.

4. Let go of the drama. The drama is on the page and in the work, but not in your life. There’ll certainly be struggles, disappointments, and big feelings. But don’t turn that into drama. Live simply. Don’t create chaos. That’s wasted energy spent in avoidance. Deal with what’s right in front of you: the work. Everything else is in the way of the thrill of your artistic exploration.

5. Comparison is death. You’re not Jennifer Lawrence. You’re not Daniel Day Lewis. You’re not Octavia Spencer. But they’re also not you. Comparing your career to another actor’s career is not the work of an artist. You are a unique actor with a unique set of experiences so your path will be unique. Likewise, comparing your bank account to that of the kid you grew up with who went to law school, undermines your unique journey and prevents your experiences from being expressed through your art. You are like no one and no one is like you.

6. Find your gratitude. Appreciate what you have; it’s a lot. Every morning and evening, in the shower, in traffic, at the post office, etc. – Identify three things for which you’re grateful. Let that become a practice. It keeps you out of the muck that actors can wallow in. “She didn’t bring me in on that part I’m perfect for.” “That other actor got the part.” “I’m too old, too fat, too insignificant, too, too, too…” Gratitude leaves no room for the negative voices that don’t have your best interests in mind. Even when those voices pop up in the waiting room as you’re about to walk into the room. Be especially grateful then!

7. Be gentle and kind to yourself and to everyone around you. Nobody deserves to be beaten up. Begin with yourself. Forgive yourself for anything you think you did wrong. Treat yourself as you would a new lover. Go out of your way to be generous. Be compassionate. Be mindful – to the casting director, the other actors who always book your parts, the guy in the Beemer who cut you off on the 405. Be kind. It will create space for happiness.

8. Only date your co-star if you absolutely have to. Yes, you’ll be attracted, you’re working really closely together and the work is personal and emotional. But resist the temptation to introduce the powder-keg that is a romantic relationship to your set. If you don’t, you’ll subject the entire set to the ups and downs of your personal life and put pressure on your budding relationship. It always gets awkward and unless you’re the star and they absolutely can’t live without you, you could put your career at risk. This may be a lesson that one only learns through experience, but do your best to keep a line between your work on set and your personal life.

Yes, there’s heartache in this business, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Seen a different way, we have chosen a business that offers the opportunity for constant growth. In fact, it requires it. What a gift!? Beautiful, vital growth is the only sure thing. Jobs, agents, red carpet premieres – they come and go. But if your goal is growth, your artistry is forever. You will be truly happy, and your success is guaranteed.

The post How To Be A Happy Actor appeared first on The Bramon Garcia Braun Studio.

But what about this possibility: How about going into an audition or to a table read, getting rejected, and allowing yourself to be OK with it? How about using rejection to fuel you? How about making it a meaningful part of your journey? Hard to imagine? Hell yeah.

Our normal human reaction is to resist feeling like crap. We don’t want to hurt. We don’t want to go to uncomfortable places, and we resist it in the work. It scares us; we do everything to avoid it. We see these words on the page and instantly shut down: “She sobs. She weeps. She cries uncontrollably.” We decide it’s impossible or useless. (The main reason that’s written, by the way, is so that the writer can underline the depth of the character’s feeling, the importance of the moment. It’s there to sell the script, not to torture the actor!)

An actor recently told me that her cousin had died, and therefore she was afraid she’d be too fragile and emotional to come to class. Well, that’s why you’re doing this, isn’t it? To express those deep, scary feelings? Remember the voice that once screamed out, “You’ve got big feelings. You’re different. You should be an actor!” Or maybe it was your mother or your drama teacher who shouted that. Either way, it’s what you love about acting. You found a place where you could feel all those rich, dark feelings. And then you went out there, made yourself vulnerable, and you had your heart broken. Well, good! We want you to feel things deeply. It’s easier to shut down and pull away from the uncomfortable places. But that pulling away just creates more fear, shame, and self-loathing. That doesn’t serve us as artists. It’s actually our undoing. Our goal is to expand. And that demands risk. It demands vulnerability.

You’re going to be rejected. Many times. Rejection is a real part of your work. It’s also a part of your emotional evolution. So what would it be like if you were rejected and welcomed the experience of feeling the hurt, the sadness, the anger? What if you were willing to truly let yourself experience those feelings wholly? And then were able to come out the other side – to find the power in it, to know the beauty in such deep feeling, to absorb the information revealed, to know the truth in both your unique experience along with its universality. It’s so uncomfortable for us to go there, but it’s vital for an artist. It’s essential to grow your entire instrument as an actor. It’s the most exciting human experience there is.

Brené Brown says that people who have a strong sense of love and belonging, “fully embraced vulnerability. They believed that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful. They didn’t talk about vulnerability being comfortable, nor did they really talk about it being excruciating – as I had heard it earlier in the same interviewing. They just talked about it being necessary.”

Most people never get to face pain with such bravery, or most big feelings for that matter. Most people are afraid. Most people turn to you, the actor, to express those feelings for them.

You’ll also get good at it, at feeling rejection for what it is, and confronting the narcissism that comes along with it. Truth is, in the scope of this business, not getting or keeping a role has nothing to do with you. Sorry, you’re not the center of “their” universe. The writers, producers, and directors, who are all desperately worrying about their jobs and projects, aren’t concerned with your feelings. They aren’t focused on loving you or wanting you. They’re doing their work so that they get their show picked up or their next gig booked or so they don’t get fired. You only matter to you. In that, you can make it personal in an unexpected way. You can choose to trek through the experience of rejection boldly, feel your feelings, grow from them, and move on.

As a good friend who’s been auditioning for 40 years says, “They weren’t buying what I was selling today. That’s fine with me. What I’m selling is my whole self. And when they develop an appetite for it, I’m right here with the best of what I’ve got.” He auditions with excitement and grace. He relishes every chance he has to act. And he gets hired one out of every three times he auditions.

There’s healing in this process of embracing rejection. The joy in being able to move through all of those big feelings can be powerful. If you fight it, you’ll feel worse. You’ll get stuck in feeling awful and shut down. If you embrace it, you’ll free yourself. And in so doing, you’ll do glorious, deep work.

I’m not encouraging indulgence when you’re rejected. I don’t recommend that you wallow in any kind of self-pity. Or complain all night to your spouse. Or create drama from it. Sure, have a few glasses of wine, curse the gods, cry, growl, eat some ice cream and watch The Bachelorette. Be miserable for one evening. And wake up the next day, fortified. Even better, write about it, exercise through it, acknowledge it for what it is. There’s tremendous growth in allowing yourself to embrace the rejection and process it completely.

In the end, you’ll want to find places where you can practice emotional exploration in a safe, nurturing way. Where you can take risks, make discoveries, surprise yourself, in community with fellow artists, in a class that supports you, and in healthy theatrical engagements.

Steve Braun, my studio partner, says, “Actors have to be brave. You have to feel the fear but move forward anyway, to be affected by your feelings, to allow yourself to go to uncomfortable, vulnerable places, and to be affected by your feelings, to walk towards it – sometimes reluctantly – and even lean into it. Nothing compares to the power of you showing up with a strong, unique, active point of view and doing what you can to affect another human being.” That is an auditioning and working practice at its best.

So go ahead and be courageous. Open your heart. Brené says, “Vulnerability is our most accurate measure of courage.” Be vulnerable. You’ll speak to the vulnerability in all of us. We’ll love it and embrace you for it.

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But of course last Friday night the reality of your First World poverty was thrust back into stark focus as the numbers were drawn and you didn’t win. Not only did you not win, no one in your state won. Actually, nobody within twelve hundred miles of you won. You gave away ten bucks for nothing but a week of wild imagining.

Illusive dreams are intoxicating like that. They entice you with the prospect of money, fame and no waiting at The Ivy. But if such dreams become your sole focus, you can lose sight of your reality. You can live a life of ever looking forward. A life long on possibility but short on the wonderful, truthful and tangible stuff of everyday beauty. Moby dick can keep you looking forward. But he can also obscure the wonder of the moment. Sound familiar?

That’s right, we actors are all about the Mega Millions. Except in our business we call it a CBS pilot that’s already got six episodes on order. Or the new Judd Apatow movie that’s not looking for a name actor. Or that XYZ Insurance Company campaign that will keep us employed for six years. Most of you moved to LA or New York looking not to become one of the 3-5% or so of union actors that SAG suggests is working at any given time. No, most of you came to LA or New York to hit the bog one! To be nothing less than a big ol’ bright shining star. To win the Academy Award. To own the house on the hill. To live half the year on the island in the Caribbean. To date the hottest model. To walk into the Grove and get recognized. “Oh My God, that’s ________!”, they’ll say.

But as pilot season winds down and many of us deal with the reality of not winning the lottery, we feel disappointed and lost. Our wild imagining wasn’t actualized. It might even be worse for those of you who were deep in the hunt. Who tested for a couple shows, came close and didn’t land one. You may wonder- as you do after most pilot seasons- if all the investment is worth it. You may even be wondering if it’s time time let Moby Dick go.

While dreams are important, in our business an actor must find the balance between the dream and the moment. Such a balance is not only important in a scene (what you want vs. what is) but it’s also an important balance for you to maintain in your life if you’re interested in healthy relationships and personal fulfillment. You must balance the forward reach with an appreciation for your reality or else your reality will never be enough and you’ll always be reaching. There’s always a bigger fish, especially in our business. Inherent in an intense focus on the dream is the notion that your current situation isn’t enough. So leaning too far towards the dream begins to show disrespect for your progress, your struggle, your sensible Toyota Corolla and your imperfect mate. The dream can shit on your reality and undermine the value of your journey

If you’re in this thing for that one big win and the fame and money that come with it, you probably won’t find fulfillment. Unless you are 1 of 30 or so actors on the planet who win the acting lottery, the money you make and the fame you acquire won’t be worth the hard work and years required to achieve it. The odds are long that you’ll make hundreds of thousands let alone millions of dollars and even when you book a TV series it’s a miracle if it lasts more than three seasons. If you want money and fame, logic suggest that you’re better off getting a graduate degree, working a steady job making 60G a year consistently and shooting a sex tape with a D list celebrity. This sounds pessimistic but it’s not.

Cause if you can keep the dream in mind while finding the joy in your artistic struggle, your process and your growth, you will indeed have a life of fulfillment. If you can see acting not as the journey towards a final financial destination but as a life of never-ending discovery, you’ll find unbelievable joy as an actor. If you love it so much that the rejection, the traffic, the searching, the stagnancy, the restaurant job, etc is outweighed by one miraculous moment of personal growth and human connection in some run-down theatre in The Valley, you’ll be OK. Keep the dream in mind, but fall in love with the reality of this moment. The most important moment in an actor’s life is this moment.

For the countless folks who didn’t win the Mega Millions and for actors who are still unemployed this pilot season, now is a perfect time to reengage with your reality. If your head and heart are present- right here right now- you’ll notice so much stunning beauty. This moment is beautiful and full with or without a pilot. With or without your share of $650 million.

So, get back into class, start writing again, start shooting again.Get back to the work. And sure, go on and dream big. But always commit to the beauty of this moment.

The post The Actor’s Mega Millions! appeared first on The Bramon Garcia Braun Studio.

This is not an easy time of year. For everyone.

And because it’s not easy, actors want answers. They want to know how to crack this code, to make it less painful, less traumatic, less ulcerous. Many of you are on a desperate search for The Formula. That desperate need is filled by acting schools, coaches, instructional videos, etc that may or may not offer tips and tricks to find the math in it all. To crack that code. They’ll promise to teach you the right way to walk into the room, to make the perfect choices, and to kill your fear. But let me drop some real talk on ya for a quick sec. There’s no code. No formula. And they’re all full of shit. Truth is, unless you learn to fall madly in love with nothing more than expressing your art in little office rooms and release yourself of a results-oriented approach to the audition, you’re sunk.

I have the great privilege of working out of an office that is casting a TV series and a pilot at the same time. Hundreds of actors sit in our waiting room every week hoping to be the next big thing. Thousands of calls from production, network, studio, writers, agents and managers inundate our phone lines every week. Agendas inside agendas. Games being played, leverage being asserted. The tentacles of each project stretch for miles, branching off and multiplying daily. It’s a pressure cooker of time constraints and conflicting creative ideas and personalities. Politics, friendships, and grudges color every interaction, facilitating one player’s rise while inserting knives in the back of another. This office is a buzzing hive of activity and each decision that’s made here is important to the project and those involved in it.

And then you walk in. You, in your bubble of fear and need. Desperately wanting them to love you so your self worth and your bank account won’t exceed a limit of shame that would cause you to throw up your hands, take up drinking and think about the Real Estate exam.

Trouble is, it’s not about you. It never is. The business isn’t disrespectful towards you. It’s indifferent. This industry is the purest example of a corporation not being a person. These networks, these studios, these production companies, they don’t care that you got the sides last night. They won’t take the time to understand that you had another audition in Santa Monica 10 mins earlier or that the reader didn’t do what you wanted her to do. The purpose of CBS, FOX or Disney is not to make sure you’re OK. And these directors, casting directors, producers and writers? Even the most creative and generous among them needs to pay their mortgage and put their kids through college. They’re not here to make sure that you’re validated or that you feel special. And nor should they be. It’s not about you.

And here’s the harsh truth. If you think it is or if you are trying to get them to care or are even severely put off but the fact that they don’t, you’re in your own way, you’re focused on something other than the work and you probably won’t book the job. The only person who is responsible for your feelings is you. And taking care of you in the audition process starts with expecting nothing from the process other than the pure, unmitigated joy of having an amazing human experience with a stranger in some office on Riverside Dr. That’s not limiting your dreams, that’s removing all the desperate, obsessive, “I hope daddy loves me this time” ridiculousness that puts you in your head and kills your artistry. That’s being an actor and loving to act.

We offer an 8 week class at the BGB Studio called The Audition Experience. Invariably actors sign up looking for The Formula. “What do I have to do to book more work?” What we do class one is dispel the notion that there is a mathematical answer. And that doesn’t sit well with many of them. When an actor realizes that such a question has no real answer and that all each actor has is the glorious struggle- that profoundly satisfying exploration that leads to discovery and growth- it takes some adjusting. But, once adjusted, our actors discover the source of their power. By letting go, giving up control and submitting to their artistry, they discover that they have the power to walk into any audition room in this town and deeply affect everyone in it. Even the most grizzled executive, casting director or director.

So after you’ve spent years desperately searching in vane for the Math, after the nerves and fear have consumed you with bitterness, and after you’ve gone too long without your voice being heard, give in. Give up control. You won’t change the industry. It’s not worth your time changing it. All you have is the expression of your unique emotional experience within the world of the play. And how absolutely fucking amazing is that? Fall in love with that process. It’s one of the greatest things there is. And you get to do it. It’s what brought you to acting in the first place.

When Al Pacino was broke and living in New York, his friends would often ask him how his day went. On days when he had an audition- even for some ridiculous project that didn’t deserve his talent- he would answer that question by genuinely lighting up and exclaiming, “Great! I got to act today!”

There’s so much to love about what you do. Remind yourself what that is and then choose to fall for it all over again.

And if you’re having trouble remembering, give us a shout. We’re happy to help.

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I was attracted to show business by the lure of the epic ego strokes and unimaginable wealth. Plus, I was a hyper sensitive kid (still am) and it was a place for all my feelings to play. My first serious acting teacher, a stunning eighty-something year old Brit, disavowed me of those false associations with the art of acting and introduced me to a powerful, transcendent form of art that was vital to any community.

She taught me that it was the duty of the actor to understand and reflect the universe so that others may understand it. She described actors of generations past who gathered children around the fire in times of hardship and offered them a needed dose of laughter and a temporary distraction from their pain. She described actors who, due to their hyper-sensitivity and tireless emotional exploration and expression, had the ability to help regular folks process their feelings in a way that left them feeling whole and connected to a collective consciousness.

27 people were killed today. 20 children. For the familes and loved ones of the victims, the horror must be unimaginable. And even those of us with no personal connection to anyone involved feel wounded. The country is wounded. Our hearts break, our sadness pours, our anger rages. An entire country feels it all. But most folks don’t know what to do with those feelings. We actors are uniquely equipped to process these feelings because we engage in consistent training that allows us to express those feelings in effective ways.

Where actors can help and provide leadership in their communities is first by example. For your children, for your families, for your friends and colleagues, you can be brave and express the feelings that you feel. You can choose to not close off and retreat to silent reflection but, rather, express to them in a meaningful way how such a deep tragedy resonates in you.

But don’t stop there. Your job’s not done. We actors know that it’s not enough to simply feel a feeling. Feeling must lead to action. And that’s where we can lead on another front. We should ask ourselves, our family, friends and neighbors, what we want as a result of our feelings. No matter what feeling lives in you as a result of the tragedy in Connecticut- sadness, anger, frustration- let it drive you to change. Let it move you towards the altering of the path that took us to this tragedy. You may not get exactly what you want, but the forward motion from a feeling towards a specific goal defines what a community thinks is important and bonds communities in a common goal.

So, get out there and express. Don’t dump- it’s not about you. Share. Affect the people around you by expressing how you feel and what you want from that feeling. The ripple effects serves to heal a nation that needs healing. On this day of tragedy and every day.

No one can change what happened. No one can fix this or take away the pain felt by the families and friends of the victims. But in an unique and vital way, you can engage in the collective healing process. In fact, you must. It is your duty.

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5:42pm. You see who’s casting the show and your mind wanders back to the last time she called you in. It didn’t go well. She was cold to you, you didn’t do what you wanted to do and she hasn’t seen you in a year. Obviously this audition must represent that casting director offering you another chance. She’s always casting great projects so you will need to make a good impression in order to make up for the last dreadful audition.

5:43pm. You examine the breakdown. They’re looking for a woman in her early twenties but you’re twenty-nine and play mid to late twenties. You officially feel less-than. Perhaps you can wear that T-shirt that you think makes you look younger and put your hair in a braid? Maybe then you’ll be what they want. You write yourself a note to go to CVS to buy more make-up. You’re going to need some help looking twenty-one. Moreover, the breakdown describes her as “brash and ballsy, one of the guys.” You cry during The Bachelor and prefer the color pink. You now hold a firm belief that you are not the actor they are looking for.

5:48pm. You download the sides. The first thing you see is the page count. 11 pages. For an audition at 10:00am tomorrow. And it includes a half-page monologue. Your fear of failing forces you to place an intense focus on the lines. You must get them right or you’ll be disregarded. Later in the evening you’ll post a Facebook update expressing your hatred for getting 11 pages of sides the day before the audition. 24 comments. 36 Like this post. The fear mounts.

5:50pm. You call your friends and cancel your dinner plans so you can concentrate on your audition. You won’t go to yoga tonight either. Your mind tells you that you have to spend the entire night working on this audition.

Ten minutes. In ten minutes you have allowed your fear to ruin your evening and more importantly get in the way of you having a compelling human experience in the audition room. Why? Because your fear is all about you. Fear, anxiety, nerves- they scream at you to protect yourself. They convince you that there is some impending doom about to befall you and then demand that you look out for number one. And that undermines everything acting is. Acting is a relationship, a truthful reaction to another. And in ten minutes you’ve become so wrapped up in protecting your own feelings that you won’t even notice the other person in the audition room. You won’t talk to the reader. You’ll talk at the reader. It’s all about you.

The truth is that the casting director probably didn’t remember your last audition. Not because you’re not special but because she sees hundreds of actors for a project. The truth is that breakdowns and age specifications are almost always flexible and either name recognition or talent usually win the day. The truth is that having an interesting human experience in the room is so much more important than being word perfect. Not to mention that there are a multitude of issues that the entire production team face that are so much more pressing than what you did in an audition a year ago, what you look like or what you will say tomorrow at 10:00am. If you really think about it you’ll come to realize that the whole process actually has very little to do with you. But now that you’ve ignored all these truths and cancelled all your plans for the evening, you’re going to spend the entire night nurturing and cultivating your fear. This audition will not go well.

I’m not saying you’re a bad person. You’re just a poor manager. Often times the source of your talent is hyper-sensitivity, the ability to feel deeply. The other side of that hyper-sensitivity is that you are affected by everything outside the world of the play as well within it. And you allow the high emotional stakes of being or not being validated in an audition room- or on set or in relationships, etc- to block access to your feelings.

It’s all about managing the fear. And how does one do that? Well, there are a bunch of good options from adopting Navy SEAL stress-coping techniques (google them), to getting into an on-going acting class. But I think the best possible way to manage your fear, nerves, anxiety, etc is to make it about someone else. I’m about to blow your mind here…

MAKE THE READER THE STAR OF THE AUDITION. That’s, right. Your audition has nothing to do with you. Make it all about the reader. Try doing what you can to support the reader. Try giving the reader what s/he needs and try to help the reader give you something in return. Convince yourself that the emotional consequence you’re so afraid of is less important than affecting the reader in the way that s/he needs.

And it translates to set, too. All the “I’m not coming out of my trailer” crap and the “why is she getting more close-ups than me?” ridiculousness is really just your fear screaming at you to protect yourself from monsters you don’t need protection from. Make it about the other person in the scene. The answers are all on the other person.

Wise people have always told me that the worst thing you can do when you’re feeling depressed or unworthy is to stay home, sit on your couch and isolate. The best thing you can do is volunteer work. Working for someone else in a cause that may not seem like your own, pulls you out of your head, keeps you physically, mentally and emotionally active and makes you lose the selfish focus on you and your issues. And what you get back is immeasurable.

Same is true when we act. Whenever your head starts spinning elaborate webs of fear and anxiety, make it about the other person. Try to lift the reader up in the audition room or your fellow actor on set. You’ll end up booking more work and the ripple effect might even change your life.

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The agent. That power-suit wearing, smooth-talker standing between you and the casting director. Without her you have no career and no hope of one. In an unscientific poll, no fewer than 100% of casting directors and agents I know said that, “How do I get an agent?” is the question most frequently asked by actors. Appropriate answers include, but are not limited to, “Be really talented”, “Be ridiculously good-looking”, “Book a TV show.”, etc. But those answers aren’t super helpful. In fact, the question, “how do I get an agent?” is one without a solid answer. There is no formula that results in getting an agent. Truth is, no formula matters if you don’t have the look or the talent that an agent thinks is marketable. So, yeah, my title is misleading. I’m not going to tell you how to get an agent. You just got suckered into reading this post for nothing. But seen another way, it’s fortunate that you learned this lesson without having to pay $400 to sit through some agency intern’s “LA agent” workshop that does nothing but fund that intern’s climb to the middle. No one has the answer.

No, there is no guaranteed formula that results in agent acquisition, but having signed with, fired and lost a bunch of them, and having seen my clients search for, acquire, lose and re-acquire a bunch more, I’ll offer some tips that may point you in a direction.

Assuming you’re training all the time (if you’re not training consistently you’re probably not going to compete), and your headhsots, resume, reel and LA Casting, Speed Reels, IMDB profiles, etc are in order, the first thing you have to do is get in front of an agent. You have to get a meeting. And you get a meeting by putting yourself out there. That doesn’t mean cold calls (cold calls or blind submissions are one approach I suppose but they’re probably a waste of time. It’s a shot in the dark. If you have an incredible look, the intern who looks at such submissions may look twice. But chances are your stuff won’t get seen). No, putting yourself out there means:

1. If you have friends, classmates, co-workers, acting teachers, etc with agents or who know agents, politely ask them to pass your picture, resume and reel along to their representation. If you don’t have friends with agents, do the work of engaging in a community of represented actors (in a class, etc), and then politely ask them to pass along your stuff. To get a meeting you’re probably going to need a recommendation and the recommendation of a client can be helpful.

2. Take every opportunity to act in plays, web series, student films, etc that will get your work seen by as many people as possible. You can’t always jump right to the big screen. Act wherever you can and if you’re talented the word will get out. Good agents go to plays. No matter how jaded the business makes them, one of the dreams of the agent is to be the first to discover that wildly talented actor who no one else would see and guide them to super stardom. You may be their diamond in the rough. So, go act.

3. Utilize Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc to its maximum potential. Agents, managers and casting directors are a part of the online community. While blind submissions and cold calls are impersonal shots in the dark, FB and Twitter in particular offer you the opportunity to engage with them in a way that could lead to a relationship and may result in a meeting. Could. May. Be VERY careful when approaching agents and casting directors on social media. If you come at them with any level of obsession, desperation or hackery, you’ve ended that relationship before it started. Use the “cocktail party approach.” Don’t do or say anything on social media that you wouldn’t do or say at a cocktail party if you were standing across from that agent. Best thing to do is add something constructive to the Facebook discussion or the Twitter feed, don’t make it all about you and go from there. Don’t be weird.

OK, so you bothered all your friends, did bad LA theatre, stalked an agent on Facebook and you got yourself a meeting. What now? How do you turn a meeting into representation? Let’s start by getting clear about what you’re asking of an agent. It’s more than just wanting her to pitch you to a casting director and get you in rooms. You’re asking her to take time away from the clients who pay her mortgage and keep her kids in private school to focus on you and your career. That’s a tall order. That is an investment of time which is an investment of money. Creative though some of them may be, more often than not agents lean towards their business interests and in this economy (even as it slowly recovers) most are leaning even harder.

In order to win their investment, they have to believe that with minimal development you will make them money. You do that in a few ways. Either you’re charming and have the perfect look (which usually means you’re young and really good looking. Not, “I was Homecoming King and have a Model Mayhem profile”, good looking. Like, really, ridiculously good looking), you’ve worked consistently and/or recently (mostly and), or you’re insanely talented and will absolutely kill in the room. Much of that you can’t do anything about. Within reason, you look how you look and you can’t create a solid reel and resume out of nothing. But the two things you can control are your talent and your hard work. You can work consistently on cultivating your talent (ie: training) so that it is strong and unique. And you can do the work of creating your own material- writing, shooting and posting content consistently- and always doing everything you can to create work for yourself. If you do that work, are of the work, and walk into the meeting with talent as a result of training, you walk in with power.

If you walk into a meeting with no power, desperate for that agent to pluck you from obscurity, dust you off and bestow his infinite light upon you, you’re dead in the water. The assumption that the agent is the one who is going to do the lion’s share of the work in the relationship is enough to end the meeting before it starts. Sure, your agent has relationships that you don’t have and can get you what you want, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t at the very least share the work load. Bring as much as you can to the table. Just be of the work. I’m going to write that again. Be. Of. The work. It is the source of your power. Name dropping (never a good idea in LA), pretending you know more about the business than you do or trying to act all suave is time wasted. Your job is to convince the agent that you are a talented and dedicated actor. Which is really easy when you’re constantly training, doing theatre and creating your own material. It’s a broad stroke, but agents are folks who are gutsy and pushy and spend most of their day trying to turn a no into a yes. They’re often energetic, power people who enjoy the challenge of working hard and getting ahead. If you walk in without your power- the work- you’re boring and not attractive to an agent. So, either be a super model with Clooney charisma or be of the work (preferably both).

The reality is that even if you do the work of maximizing your potential, it’s likely that you’ll still get denied many more times than you’ll get interest from an agent (Like I said, no formula for this stuff). But if you keep your focus on the work, keep training and keep growing, I believe that you will increase your value as an actor, thereby increasing your chances that you’ll acquire representation.

A few other tips:

1. Agents only make money when you make money. If they’re asking you to pay them up front to represent you, insisting that you pay to use their one and only headshot photographer, or want to take more than 15% of the money you make (10% is typical), run away. And consider calling the Better Business Bureau.

2. Ladies, agent meetings don’t ever have to happen over drinks after 7pm. There are agents who exercise the power we give them in an attempt to satisfy their ego and their extracurricular desires. If they’re interested in your work, meetings can happen at an office during business hours.

3. Follow up with an agent, but don’t pester. Try not to contact an agent out of a feeling of panic or desperation. That’s a sign of a high maintenance actor and that’s a red flag. It means they’ll have to work harder. Never be more high maintenance than you are profitable to an agent. You’ll get dropped.

Finally, keep in mind that not having an agent is no excuse for not creating material and distributing it online. Don’t wait for anyone’s permission to create. If you don’t have an agent, it means you probably won’t go through the normal, old channels of the industry. But it doesn’t mean you can’t create something that is brilliant, that resonates with people and that has 2 millions hits by Tuesday. And when that happens, you won’t have to look for an agent. They’ll come looking for you.

The post How To Get An Agent appeared first on The Bramon Garcia Braun Studio.

Clint Eastwood stood at the podium in front of millions of people around the country and had a seemingly impromptu discussion with an empty chair that he imagined to be occupied by President Obama. He rambled. He mumbled. He talked to the audience, then to the chair. It lacked cohesion and indeed comprehension. It was awkward, exciting, funny and sad all because he was existing moment to moment on stage. We had absolutely no idea what was going to happen next. Which might have been wonderful. But unfortunately for him- and the party- nothing with any particular point did happen. While I imagine that he must have had some thoughts in his head about what he might do on stage (“I guess I’ll talk to the chair”), he clearly didn’t know where it was going to go. He didn’t have a clear point or know what he wanted from the audience. The performance lacked a strong preparation. For the most part he was dealing with the moments and certainly being authentic. But the moments weren’t rooted in a strong and interesting preparation so they were left to float in the air, directionless, until they met their inevitable demise. In front of millions of people. Clearly Clint hasn’t auditioned in a tick because any actor who goes out regularly knows that if you go into an audition without a strong preparation (having made the material and the world of your play personal and specific, knowing what you want, etc) you’ll awkwardly flop around on stage like Clint did. He was all about the moments without any preparation.

The precise opposite was true of Mitt Romney. The political, financial and emotional stakes being as high as they are right now, the campaign and the candidate did everything they could to totally and utterly control every aspect of Mitt’s speech and the reaction it would illicit in the audience. Every line, every smile, every feeling was carefully choreographed with surgical precision in order to give us the impression that Mitt is everything they want us to think he is. That he has a heart. That he cares about the middle class, women and Latinos. That he has the ability to fix the economy and get America where we all want it to be. His speech was saturated with preparation. But no moments. Mitt Romney’s speech didn’t move anyone because there was no room for the authenticity that comes when you’re allowing yourself to be truthfully affected by what you are saying in the moment, discovering how you feel about it as you’re saying it. And because they tried to control our reaction rather than have Mitt share a sliver of his emotional truth with us and allow us to feel what Mitt was feeling, we might have even felt manipulated. Mitt didn’t need to weep, but he did need to speak like a human being. And he didn’t. Human beings who we deem to be authentic aren’t that prepared. People with things to hide, who have an intense fear of a particular consequence and who don’t want you to know what they’re like when they’re not on guard, saturate everything they say with preparation. Every line. Every word. It doesn’t inspire trust. He needed to allow the moments to happen and rely less on preparation. He needed to let go. Mitt Romney may be what this country needs to get the economy going- you can decide that for yourself- but he does have a problem appearing inauthentic because he doesn’t trust the moments.

Both Clint and Mitt should have taken a page from the other’s play book. Only the weaving together of preparation and the moments make for a compelling, authentic performance that moves people to action. Being prepared while also allowing for discovery in the moment- these seemingly conflicting notions- will take your work to the next level. At certain times during your performance your preparation informs your actions and at other times during a performance the moments take over. It is a fluid dance back and forth that is the stuff of real, human interaction. Without the moments you won’t move anyone. Without the preparation, you’ll be pointless and weird.

Wanna explore the preparation and the moments? Come audit a class this week. www.bramongarciabraun.com

The post What The GOP Taught Us About Acting appeared first on The Bramon Garcia Braun Studio.

OK, so it’s a new year and you’re motivated. So, what’s now? How do you turn New Year’s motivation into the real, practical stuff of kicking ass in the film and TV business? While there’s no set path to acting greatness and nothing you do can guarantee that you’ll be a star, here are four practical steps you can take this week that will help your acting career.

1. Train. All the time. Get in a class or classes and learn everything there is to know about acting, filmmaking and theatre. Think you already know how to act? Do yourself a favor and humble yourself with a new technique or teacher. Even if it turns out not to be your cup of tea, you’ll grow. Train to keep your skills sharp, to grow as an actor and a human being and to stay engaged with a community of artists.

2. Write and record your own material and then distribute it on the internet. Actors have never had this much power; cameras, editing programs and distribution have never been this accessible. These days the only thing that is keeping you from creating art is you. It’s all there for you. You don’t need an agent, a stage manager, a casting director or a studio executive. So, go on and create. Like, today.

3. Organize your tools. Headshots, resume, reel, website, etc. They should all be in order so that you can pull them out of your back pocket at a moment’s notice without taking a week to update them. Make sure your shots, resume and reel are current. You don’t have to spend the earth on this stuff (like the ridiculous photographers who charge $700-$1000 a shoot) but you should invest in good quality tools. If you need recommendations, email me.

4. Be self aware. Take a fierce inventory of your goals and what you might be doing to keep yourself from reaching them. Every actor has room to grow. Evaluate where you need to grow and work to achieve that growth.

2012. Let’s get to it!

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