This blog is dedicated to 1. the young grads who told me after their showcase, how anxious they were about getting an agent.
2, The super helpful and very amenable Helen Grady who has graciously offered corrections, and for whose help I am very grateful. Corrections following her comments are in red, and her original comment is appended at the bottom of the blog
“We need someone to play opposite Daniel Day Lewis,” says Mmme. Bigshot de Pinewood. “But it’s so hard to find anyone with a 3 yr MT degree, panto experience, playing age 20-39, 5’8” with a base in both London and Bradford!”
“Darling, why didn’t you say?” says the agent, flamboyantly waving her vol-au-vent. “I’ve got just the person! Pass me your phone, I’ll type in her spotlight pin!”
Oh, what a lovely scene.
But it’s not how things work. Not anymore. Not for mere mortals like us.
I’m not sure the industry ever worked like this.
‘But entertainment is all about “who you know”, not “what you know”. Isn’t it?’. Don’t you believe it: training, persistence, positive work ethic and building a good reputation will (in the long run) all prove to be more valuable, more often, and more consistently than knowing the ‘right people’. Of course, if what you mean by ‘the right people’ is people who end up giving you acting work, then there’s no better way of ensuring you’re surrounded by them than training, persistence, positive work ethic and building a good reputation!
Aside - OK, there is a slim, sliver of actors for whom this adage may hold true: ones who are part of a dynasty perhaps – a Sheen or a Fox or a Garland etc. If your parents know everyone, you may well find you get a few ins others don’t. However, if you have a megastar parent, you’re also much more likely to have grown up in the industry, have had excellent training, and have inherited/learned the same work ethic that helped your forebears climb to the top. Nobody’s looking at Liza with a Z and thinking “she only got Sally Bowles because of Judy!” However, such counterexamples are merely exceptions that prove the rule. If you do have a leg-up, use it… but 99% percent of us don’t. And there’s no way of choosing new parents now!
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| Actual snap of Sir Ian McKellen's agent during the casting process for Mother Goose |
Celebs may have agents that get them jobs “privately” – by which I mean, for which there is no audition, at least not one you have opportunity to attend. Of these: a few are very glamorous roles, lead roles with stunt casting, names that are used to drive audience numbers, but in the grand scheme of things, these make up such a slim sliver of the pie, for our purposes, we can ignore them. Many more roles that are “privately” cast go to returning artistes – ‘safe pairs of hands’, ‘company members’ and ‘audience favourites.’ By contrast with the very glamorous roles, these are roles that mere mortals like us might have been cast in. The fact that these roles aren’t cast openly is a matter of huge frustration for anyone trying to get a first foot in the door, but is a boon both for time-pressed and budget-responsive producers as well as the established actors that return. Whether it’s fair or not, is a topic best left for another time.
However, just about everyone else is cast through some kind of casting process, and some overwhelming proportion of these involve Spotlight.
The great thing about Spotlight is once you’re on it, you don’t need an agent to make a submission.
I’ll repeat that: you don’t NEED an agent.
There may have been a point in the past where you did need an agent, but those days are gone.
I’m NOT saying: you shouldn’t have an agent. Nor that you’d be better off without one.
GREAT AGENTS: Costs vs Benefits
A great agent not only manages actors, but guides and nurtures them, working together to grow successful careers, underpinned by great relationships and positive work habits.
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| 1: My agent has eight arms. 2: How do they smell? 1: Like an octopus! |
Things a great agent can do for you:
- Networks – they maintain personal relationships with theatre producers (you can tell which ones because the casts of their always have one or two of the agents clients)
- Advocates for you – they ring round producers the day before the auditions. “Have you had any cancellations? Any free slots? Have you considered my client – they mightn’t quite fit the brief, but they’ve got a good look and a Manchester base.”
- Is collaborative – they know what you want to do, they know your availability, they check in with you before subbing your profile: would you like to do this job?
- Sets you up for success – they make sure you fill the brief and are ready to take the role, they have checked the terms of the contract are acceptable before sending you in to audition, they communicate clearly with the producers what makes you such a good fit, they brief you beforehand: what are the producers looking for? What is going to impress them?
- Administrate – Go through any contracts thoroughly, explain what will be expected to you, invoice in advance, chase late payments, disseminate wages quickly. It's not rocket science, but it is admin… and if you wanted to do admin, you wouldn’t be an actor.
And what does this cost you? A measly, piffling 20%. Believe me, it's worth every penny!
If you’ve got a great agent, cling on to them with both hands. They’re not as common as you might think, and they’re worth their weight in gold.
GOOD AGENTS: Costs vs Benefits
If your agent gets you a job, you’re quids-in right from the start. Anyone who puts pounds in your pocket is worth their commission. And worth hanging onto, believe me!
However, most agents don’t get us jobs, they get us auditions. Which is nothing to sniff at! Keeping an eye on Spotlight and subbing profiles is definitely work, and it definitely has a value. Of course, if you find you find that you have to do job-board watching and ‘nudge your agent’ every time something suitable comes up… you may not be getting value for money.
Let’s imagine the audition. Most of the actors in the waiting room were submitted by agents. Only a few submitted themselves.
Let’s imagine one of the roles goes to one of those actors who self-submitted. Imagine the contract is £3000. At the end of the contract, that actor ends up £3000 cash in your pocket (and HMRC’s pocket).
Imagine you get cast in another role. Your agent takes 20%*, so you only end up with £2400. In fact, any actor represented by an agent, would need to be paid £3750 to end up getting as much as the un-represented performer. In other words, an agent must provide £750 worth of value before their client is as well off as they would be without any representation.
That is a HUGE amount on a £3000 contract. Budgets are typically much, much tighter than that. Perhaps you have a hard-nosed agent who can argue even the most spendthrift producer into covering a few travel expenses, but unless you’re arriving by helicopter, you’ll not likely break £750.
Leaving aside for a moment the value you gained from being submitted. The rest of the shortfall is money you’re paying for watching contract management: Reading, advising, filing, invoicing.
How much that’s worth will depend on the person (and the contract).but if I were paying hundreds of pounds for contract advice, I’d expect some red ink and circles with question marks… and for all the invoice to be submitted postdated before the contract began.
NOT-SO-GOOD AGENTS: Costs v Benefits
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| Some agents are in it for the artists, some are in it for the money |
When a producer logs into Spotlight, they see a directory. Folders and subfolders for each of the shows that they’re producing, as well as their previous productions.
Every production folder contains subfolders for each character. Every subfolder contains the profiles of everyone who’s been submitted for that role.
It’s not possible to audition everyone who is submitted for a role. Instead, the producer looks through the CVs and watches the showreels.
If you are running multiple shows, or have lots of submissions, it may not possible to look at every CV and/or watch the showreels. Honestly, it’s not for wont of trying – we get many less submissions than big companies and when we do casting we work 100+ hours weeks. If numbers are so high that hard work isn’t enough, you have to find ways to whittle down the inbox to something you can manage.
I can only speak for us, but here are some of the tricks we use:
If an agent has submitted more than 5 people for a role, we don’t look at them. Some agents submit 20+ actors for every role, even though our character breakdowns are very specific. It simply isn’t possible that they represent so many actors that match the brief. They haven’t read the brief. They’re just submitting everyone. Even if one or two might be good, that means 90-95% of our time looking at their client’s profiles would be wasted.
If we’ve had a bad experience with lots of actors from a particular agency, we don’t look at any of their submissions. What counts as a bad experience? Here are a few:
- Not showing up for your audition slot (without explanation).
- Turning down an offer for the role you auditioned for any reason you knew in advance (“it’s too far from home” “It’s at Christmas” “It isn’t TV”)
- Accepting a role then gazzumping the company for a “bigger offer”
- Claiming to live withing 25miles of the venue at the audition, then changing your mind after offer and negotiating for subs.
Of course, things like this are bound to happen – they are to be expected. As you also might expect: the more shows you produce, the more times things like this will happen. What you might not expect is: when things like this do inevitably happen, and you go on spotlight to make a note for future reference, how frequently you see the same few agencies pop-up. How many times must you see the same name, Agency XYZ, before it becomes reasonable to assume Agency XYZ has a culture you don’t want to work with? 5? 10? You can decide your own number. We have our own – and after an agency reaches it, we don’t look at their submissions.
If we have a few bad experiences with an agent (or possibly just one big one), we don’t consider their submissions. What are bad experiences we have with agents?
- They don’t respond to emails
- They don’t confirm attendance to auditions
- They are rude on the phone
- They don’t read the contracts properly
- They don’t read the brief/they submit performers who aren’t interested
- They are extremely pushy
If you are reading this thinking: why don’t I ever get called for a Big Tiny panto, there is some non-zero chance that you have been submitted, but we haven’t looked at your profile, simply because of who represents you.
BAD AGENTS: Costs...
Of course, you may have a really bad agent: an agent that’s losing you work.
Every year, when we send out offers to actors, there are a few we end up chasing. Usually, the agents are dragging their heels on purpose: e.g. waiting for yes/no on some bigger contract (third round Les Mis, some bigger panto), and when pressed for a decision will usually try for a betterment clause. However, some claim they’ve “not had any time to discuss it” (code for “I’ve not sent it on.”) and some agents just stop replying at all.
I’ll repeat that: some agents do not return emails or answer their phones.
So…
The role gets offered to somebody else.
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| Some agents literally stop their clients getting paid |
Luckily we’ve not had a repeat of that this year. Although we did have an email from an actor asking for feedback; our response? We offered the part to you 10 days ago – we’ve tried to chase up your agent twice since then. Would you like the part?
ALTERNTATIVES: Co-ops and Self-rep
What about you? Do you have a great agent, a good agent, a good-enough-for-right-now agents, or a good-grief-I-need-someone-better agent?
Maybe your agent is somewhere in-between.
They might be great at networking, awful at admin.
They might be great, but some of the time, until they’re overworked - then they’re awful.
They might have been great when you signed with them, then they signed 200 others and now you’ve not heard from them since March.
If that sounds like you: remember you don’t NEED an agent. Alternatives do exist.
You could become part of an actor’s co-operative. A co-op is a group of performers who band together to share the costs and responsibilities of representation, with members taking turns to submit each other for roles and handle basic admin tasks. Popular co-ops like Act On It and The Actors' Co-operative typically charge a monthly fee (usually £20-40) rather than (and/or in conjunction with*) commission, giving actors more control over their submissions while splitting the workload of monitoring Spotlight and managing applications.
*thanks to the proof reader!
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| You don't have to be able to afford shop in co-op to join a co-op |
On one hand, you’ll save on commission, on the other, your committing to giving time. Whether that’s worth it or not will depend – but for someone with lots of time but not lots of money, it’s got to be worth considering.
Or, of course, you could self-represent. Watch the Spotlight board yourself, read the breakdowns, submit. Communicate directly with the producers. Send your own invoices. You might have to learn a few things – you may not be a natural adminner or an accounts-whizz – but then again, plenty of other actors manage it: they can’t all have A-level business administration! *SEE APPEND
I can’t speak for everyone, but honestly, The Big Tiny have never not called a performer because they were self-represented. If you’re already having some doubts about your agent, you could always try giving self-rep a go… there’s little to lose, and you might even discover some talents you never knew you had.
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| Remember 10x8s? Those were the days! |
TLDR:
· Every actor would love to have a great agent.
· There aren’t enough great agents to go round.
· Having an agent (any agent) has a cost
· Having a not-very-good agent has hidden costs
· Bad agents can lose you work
· You may be better as part of a co-op
· Self-represention is a viable option
Helen's original comment.
ADDENDUM
Helen's third point is very apposite. However, my limited search skills were unable to get any clarity wrt the size of the discrepency. The following response was returned by Claude 4.0 Sonnet AI.
