Hey Bonnie,
I wrote to you in July in response to one of your Your Turn columns, asking how we would pitch ourselves to an agent. I was pretty long winded, and was so excited when I read your suggestions for prepping and really getting ready to make a successful meeting with an agent a reality in the future. I was positive that your assertion that an agent meeting probably wasn’t in the works for me any time soon was probably true.
However, as always, the unexpected happened and about two weeks after getting your response I was called in to an interview with Ross Grossman of Affinity Artists. After chatting about our goals and looking over my resumé, Ross asked if I had a reel. I didn’t. I realized then that I had screwed up. He said that he thought I had a great look and that he liked me very much but that my resumé just didn’t say enough, especially without a reel to show what little work I had done. He said he would love to have me come back at a later time when I had built up my reel and resumé a bit.
I was disappointed but also extremely encouraged to go out and get stuff done. As I was about to leave the office, he asked if I would like to perform a monologue while I was there so he could see where I was and maybe give me some pointers to help me with my next interview or what he was looking for in the future. This is where I almost crapped my pants, and literally the bolded words, “Be Prepared!” flashed though my mind. I looked at him and I said “absolutely!” I put down my purse and I totally let him have it. He actually used the words “blown away.” He asked who I trained with and when I told him I went to the same high school as Kristin Chenoweth and shared the same acting teacher, he said, “Um, why isn’t that on your resumé?! You need to call and thank her.”
He told me the terms of the contract and I told him I’d let him know within a week whether I would be signing on with the agency. I was SO EXCITED!! (And of course I signed with them, I just didn’t want to seem over-eager.) For the first couple of weeks I was sure I had signed with a horrible agency since they took on such a newbie like me, but since August I’ve already been in front of Alyson Silverberg and even knocked out my first commercial with Nintendo.
I think my point here is that I realize how lucky I was to get the opportunity to actually do my job for Ross, but had I not been prepared, it wouldn’t have mattered how talented I was. Now I’ve got my reel up and running, my resumé slowly growing, and I can’t wait for what comes next.
In the end, I really have to thank you and your column for all the great advice, the constant reminders, and for the amazingly timed article about that agent interview! I look forward to following you for a long long time to come!
Morgan Drew
Congratulations on getting into some really great rooms since signing with your first agent. Good for you! Even bigger congratulations for being so on-the-ball that when you were given an opportunity to show off your work (even though you didn’t have a demo reel), you could do so, right there in the room. Very cool. Now to go about the work of building that reel so you can continue to grow as a performer in this business!
One thing your email made me think about is a meeting that an actor friend had with one of “the bigs” due to a referral. He knew he was nowhere near ready to sign with one of the big agencies, and he knew this was a favor meeting that his relationship with a friend was making possible. He didn’t want to turn down the meeting, because it was such an outstanding opportunity. But was it? I mean… was it an outstanding opportunity for him at that moment? Or a chance to cash a check before the money is in the bank?
Really consider that there is great value in “watering a contact” for a little while (to adapt a phrase from Linda Buzzell’s How To Make It in Hollywood), while you get to the point where having the meeting can do you — and them — the most good! I was recently told, “Bon, I’ll do anything for you,” by a high-powered colleague, and replied, “Y’know what, I trust that. So I’m going to ask that you not help me on this project because I have a bigger one coming up and I’d rather not prematurely cash in my chips with you.”
I know everyone thinks the first things to do upon arriving in Los Angeles are joining the unions and getting an agent. I couldn’t disagree more with this gameplan. There are so many relationships to build, there is so much footage to amass on your reel, and there is just so much to learn about your potential business partners before getting signed and shelved or trapping yourself into a higher tier than that at which you’re ready to compete.
Thinking back to my friend who had the meeting with a big agency, he did something very smart. He took the meeting but went into it knowing he wouldn’t YET be well matched with this agency, should they do a huge favor and offer a slot on the roster due to the relationship with the mutual friend. When the power agent asked, “What can I do to help you, at this point?” the actor smartly said, “You can let me check in with you over the course of my career, because I’ll want to be on your roster when I’m past the guest star stage.”
Don’t rush to meet. Don’t rush to sign. Do good research, be sure you’re meeting with people who are a good fit for where you currently are and for where you’re headed, and then have meetings for which you are always — just like you were in your recent (potentially premature) meeting — prepared!
Bonnie Gillespie is living her dreams by helping others figure out how to live theirs. Wanna work with Bon? Start here. Thanks!
Originally published by Actors Access at http://more.showfax.com/columns/avoice/archives/001306.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.