Maintaining Industry Relationships
In the tight-knit community that is the film industry, you are bound to make friends, allies & meet mentors. How you maintain and balance these relationships is truly integral to your success.
- Remain Professional – Casting Directors, Producers and their Assistants are people too, and many of them are down to earth and awesome, who most likely frequent the same events and areas that their actors do. Your impression is lasting. Make sure it’s one worth remembering.
- Friendly, not Besties – Having a working relationship is crucial. However, the audition waiting room (or any set for that matter) is not a place to gossip. Keep small talk to a minimum, and be aware of the volume in the room, it should be kept professional. You are not speaking to them at an event or bar, you are in their office wanting to be hired by them.
- Stay Humble – You are an actor and are brought in to a casting studio for one purpose. Your audition is a job interview, and you should treat it as such. Be 5 minutes early, be prepared, and NEVER expect special treatment. Texting an assistant or the director personally sends a bad message. Maintain a professional protocol when working by not bypassing your Agent with regrets or delays etc. Whether or not you are on a personal level with a casting director, you are at work…not play.
- Do not assume that due to your personal relationships that you can bypass protocol. Self tape deadlines are still firm, audition times are firm, materials requested are firm. Casting directors are loyal to their clients…they have a job to do. If you are a respected friend to them then you are the last person who should be messing with the job they have to do to service their client’s properly.
As Agents, we have seen it time and again….as actors become established they build relationships with industry personnel, it's a given that your Agents, Casting Directors and Producers will get to know you on a personal level. This simply cannot affect how you do your job. This can very well be your downfall if you don't maintain a professional relationship along with your personal one.
We take it even more personally when one of our favourite actors, who we know well, regret auditions at the last minute. When they take for granted the policies of the Agency and think they no longer have to follow protocol. We have a strong feeling that casting directors are the same. They are friendly and courteous out of respect but they will not take kindly to actors getting so comfortable that they don't follow professional protocol.
Actors should schmooze, they should be as friendly as possible and they should build as many relationships in the industry as possible. They should not ever forget that they have a job to do as do their new industry friends. Stay professional and on point! This is the real way to maintain your relationships properly 🙂
