If I don’t live locally — for instance, Nevada or some place — does it hurt to have my Nevada address and/or telephone number? Do actors get Los Angeles and New York phone numbers and addresses?

Great timing! I’m meeting this afternoon with an actor who lives out-of-state and intends to pursue a professional acting career.

The goal is to have as few obstacles as possible laid in your road to success, right? That means not giving people a reason to think twice about bringing you in.

While cell phone number portability has caused us to expand our thinking about what a “local number” is, we are still somewhat less likely to call outside of 213, 310, 323, and 818 to schedule a last-minute audition. Why run the risk of being told, “Sorry, I can’t get there from Nevada that quickly,” when we have another ten actors of your category and type who we believe ARE local? It’s just a conservation of efforts issue, in most cases like that.

That said, I actually cast an actor in a feature film without knowing she was from out-of-state. She made it to every pre-read and callback without fail and never mentioned her commute to get to us. It wasn’t until I was finalizing her contract and had to add in travel expenses I’d not anticipated that I learned she’d been coming in from WAY out of town for her auditions. By then, the director and producers were in love with her and there was no going to the next actor on the list, just to save a few bucks on travel and lodging during the shoot.

When I speak in out-of-market locations, I always ask actors to make a note of two things on their resumés for me. Are they open to doing very low-budget projects for which I should contact them directly and are they willing to come in from out of town for an audition. Since some actors would only make the trek for the actual role (and not for the audition), I like to know what I’m dealing with, before I make that call to schedule someone.

So, I would say that a local phone number is a great idea, if you have the resources to maintain it. In fact, one never-changing phone number for the life of your acting career is a really great idea, since people hold onto headshots for years sometimes. As for a local mailing address, I can’t imagine that you would need one. Rarely do we look at the return address on a mailed submission and use that as a reason to automatically exclude an actor from consideration for a role.

Whatever you choose to do, be honest about your limitations. If you do not have a situation where you can, in fact, jump on a plane and get to a same-day audition, do not promise that you can do so. Being burned by someone who says he can be there and then no-shows is enough to never call that actor in again.

Have fun, and keep us posted on what you choose to do!

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/000041.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.