I was talking with an actor last week about her TYPE. Ah, yes, that dreaded and essential element of an actor’s career: identifying and marketing to her primary type. Well, I wasn’t going to write this week’s column about type seeing as I very recently wrote about type and have written about type quite a few times in the past (and omigod if I type the word TYPE again, I’m going to lose it), but then I realized that this might be useful information and who am I to decide what y’all wanna read? I figure if you’re talking with me about it, blogging about it, working on it in class, or debating it with fellow actors, it’s “out there” and worth covering in a column. So, here it is. The reason you have trouble identifying your primary type: You know yourself too well.

Now, I’m a huge fan of knowing oneself. And I mean really, really well: Knowing all of those dark nooks and crannies and understanding the obsessions and neuroses. Really getting what makes you tick, why you react the way you do, who it is you really are at your core makes you a better actor and a better person, I believe. So, I’m not at all saying that in order to identify your primary type you need to spend less time navel-gazing and more time avoiding your own personal mythology. What I am saying is that you have to find a way to step back from all that you know in order to get your type nailed down.

Here. Perfect example. How many times in your adult life have you heard yourself say something and then said to yourself, “Dear gawd! That was SO my mom talking,” immediately after? I don’t know about you, but I do this all the time. The words will escape my lips and I’ll think, “Wow, Charlsie. How did you get in here?” We all do it to some extent (and if not your mom, it’s your dad or your sibling or your pastor or your teacher or your first love or whatever). For me, sometimes it’s even “former me” I catch talking. I used to be really, really, really, really, really obsessed with perfection. I mean ugly obsessed. Did the whole OCD, anorexic in high school, no-wire-hangers-level perfectionism trip for a while there. Even though I’m no longer a perfectionist to any degree close to what I once was, my OCD is totally in check, and I haven’t starved myself or ripped wire hangers from the closet in years, sometimes I’ll hear myself say something that comes from that “old me” place.

If I catch it right away, I’ll laugh, examine what about the current situation has me doing a flashback to the old me, and put it in check to come up with a more “me now” response. The point to all this, though, is that there’s 38 years of “stuff” in me. And if I want to hold on to my family’s history (the way some people love to continue to fight battles of oppression or poverty or entitlement or victimization that happened generations ago), I can say there’s even more than 38 years of “stuff” I’m carrying around at any given time. But what is it that people see, feel, and believe about me when they meet me for the first time?

None of that stuff. Not one bit of it. Yes, all of that led up to me being the person that I am at this moment, sure. But when someone is meeting me for the first time, she is bringing to the encounter whatever it is that she already knows about me (maybe she knows I’m in casting, but doesn’t know I’m a writer. Maybe she knows I live at the beach, but doesn’t know I’m from Atlanta. Maybe she knows I love to wear jeans, but doesn’t know I used to coat my hands in Vaseline and sleep in gloves like a princess the nights before hand modeling jobs) and what she SEES and FEELS right then.

And that’s just like casting.

I know you’re an actor or you wouldn’t have this headshot and resumé. I know you’re whatever gender, race, and age (or pretty much) because of visual cues and my experience gauging such things. And I immediately get a sense of your type because of how you look, how you’re dressed, what things you say right away, your level of confidence, and just a sense of what roles you could occupy overall.

None of that has to do with that you were abused as a child or grew up on the wrong side of the tracks or don’t know who your real father is or got kicked out of school or lettered in track or skipped your prom to get high behind the stadium or once were married or had an abortion or campaigned for a political candidate or have a DUI on your record or can’t pay rent this month or just got promoted in your survival job or are newly engaged or just learned you’re going to be a grandparent or only began pursuing acting after a near-death experience… or anything else that’s very real and very big in your life.

Now, you know all of those things about yourself. You know what your “stuff” is and what your family “stuff” is if you’re one of those who likes to carry around their “stuff” plus your stuff too (I used to be; I am not anymore. I figure I start with ME). In casting, we do NOT know these things about you. Nor will we want to sit with you while you tell your life story so that we can really, truly GET you and then cast you appropriately. Nope. Not our job.

We’re very shallow like that. We just want to get a sense of who you are and how to cast you. And that assessment is made quickly, is based on a bunch of surface stuff, and is only slightly affected by the below-the-surface stuff that you let bubble through to how you are perceived as you walk through life.

So, what is your type? Not, what is your life history? Not, who are you at your core? Just, what is your type?

Imagine a train on the tracks, headed into town. If you’re standing alongside the tracks, you’re going to see car after car after car after car… engine in front, caboose in the back. That’s how you see yourself. You know what’s in every car and what’s written on every car and even what it took to load the stuff into every car and how many of the cars are empty and on and on and on. In casting, we’re standing at the station, waiting for your train to arrive. All we see is the very front of the engine as it approaches the station and stops. We know nothing about all of that cargo, nor do we care. We see what we’re looking for on the “face” of that engine and we know we’ve got the right train for the job.

So, know yourself, yes. Know yourself well. It’ll make you a better actor and a better person. But when you’re nailing down your type, when you’re shooting and then selecting headshots, when you’re submitting on roles, think less about ALL of your “stuff” that makes this possible or that possible and instead think about the quick, face-on, first-impression version of you. Get headshots that sell THAT. Submit on roles of THAT kind. Market yourself toward THAT one, primary type. So simple… if you know yourself well, and then learn how to know yourself a little less.

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/000927.html. Please support the many wonderful resources provided by the Breakdown Services family. This posting is the author’s personal archive.