Skip to content
Actor Insider by Jodie Bentley
  • About
    • Press
  • Work with Jodie
    • The Actor’s Think Tank
    • The Artist’s Mastermind
    • One-on-One Coaching
  • Successes
  • Resources
    • Blog
  • Get the App
  • Shopping Cart
Photograph of a sunrise over the ocean
Branding & Marketing

How Actors Can Live in Possibility

You can't figure out what 'they' want -the casting directors, directors, producers, etc. You aren't in their head. But man do we try. If you can't know for sure might as well see yourself as the solution. Why not you?

Continue Reading

Newer Articles »

Categories

  • Branding & Marketing (19)
  • Goals & Strategy (49)
  • Mindset (55)
  • Note from the Author (1)
  • Pitching & Networking (4)

Instagram Posts

actorinsider
Almost every actor who worries about being annoyin Almost every actor who worries about being annoying is following up too little, not too much. The people who are actually a pest have never once wondered about it. So if the question is in your head at all, that's usually your answer. Here's the cadence I give my clients. Two follow-ups after a first contact, roughly three weeks apart. If nothing comes back, move them to your long list and touch base twice a year with something useful. That's the whole thing. And give them a reason that isn't you. "Just checking in" makes the other person do the work of remembering why you're in their inbox. Send a link to something you made. Congratulate them on their news. Mention a project you saw them on. The reason can be small. It just can't be nothing. Last piece. Write down what happened. Who, when, what they said, when you'll circle back. Half of feeling like a pest is honestly just not remembering whether you already reached out. Consistent beats clever, every time. Comment EBOOK for the free 7 Steps guide. 🎬 #actingcareer #actortips #workingactor
Last week I told you where I stand on AI. Today I Last week I told you where I stand on AI. Today I want to tell you what I did about it. I built the first-ever coaching app for the business of acting - Build the Acting Career You Want. Nothing like it existed. So I made it. Here's how it works. You answer a few questions I wrote myself. Where you are, what you want, what's in your way. It builds you a personalized plan from my strategies, in the right order for where you actually are. Then every day, it tells you exactly what to work on. Let me show you what a Tuesday looks like. You open the app. Your session is twelve minutes, because that's what your life allows today, and it knows that. Today's focus is agent outreach. Not because I decided that, but because it's your goal and you told it so. First, three minutes on mindset. The thing that actually stops you from hitting send. Then the real work. You draft your pitch, you paste it in, and you get feedback right away, built on what I know actually gets opened and answered. You send two emails. 🎯 The app logs it. Your progress moves. And tomorrow it picks up where you left off, because it remembers what you did and what you've been avoiding. 😊 That's the day. Twelve minutes, one real step forward. And then you do it again. And anything that comes up in between? You simply ask. These are the things you'd text a friend at midnight, if you had one who understood this industry: My agent hasn't sent me out in seven weeks. How do I bring that up without sounding ungrateful? Is it too late to switch markets? I got a callback and my imposter syndrome is kicking in. Help! Those aren't small questions. They're the ones that stop actors cold for weeks. 🔥 Now you can open the app and ask. And what comes back is mine. My systems, my frameworks, my proven strategies of eighteen years answering exactly these questions for actors in thirty-two countries. It was my birthday Sunday, and I'm celebrating with you all week. $20/ month for your first three months through Friday at midnight PT. Cancel within 7 days for a full refund. 💛 💬 Comment APP and I'll send you the link.
You keep buying new headshots and calling it inves You keep buying new headshots and calling it investing in your career. 👇 I'm not knocking it. You should have great materials. But let me do the math nobody does. Add up what you've spent in the last three years. Headshots. Classes. Your reel. Casting site subscriptions. Wardrobe for self tapes. For most actors that's thousands. Now add up what you've spent on knowing what to do with any of it. That's the pattern I've watched for 18 years. Actors invest in the assets and skip the strategy, then wonder why the phone isn't ringing. ✨ And it's not because the information isn't out there. It's my birthday week so I'm allowed to be a little "back in my day" about this. When I started, you had three options: ask an actor friend who was also guessing, figure it out yourself badly over years, or pay somebody. That was the whole menu. Now there are nine thousand people telling you what your headshot should look like, and every question you've ever had is answerable in four seconds. So why does everybody still feel stuck? 🔥 Because access is not the same thing as direction. You can get an answer instantly. What you can't get is any way to know whether it's a good one. It sounds confident either way. And you don't find out it was wrong until six months of your career have gone by. You don't need more information. You need to know which of it is true for YOUR career, your brand, your goals. And what to do about it on a random Tuesday at 10pm. So that's what I spent this year building: the first ever coaching app for the business of acting. And everything in it is mine. My systems, my frameworks, my strategies. 18 years of what I've actually watched work and fail for real actors in 32 countries. Not nine thousand strangers. One source you can actually check. 💛 Back in my day I would have killed for this. I'm just glad the tech finally exists so I can make it for you. It was my birthday yesterday, and I'm celebrating with you all week with a special discount on my new app through Friday the 25th. And you can try it out for 7 days! 💬 Comment APP and I'll send you the link.
Andrew worked at this for ten years before anythin Andrew worked at this for ten years before anything shifted. Not because he wasn't talented, and not because he wasn't trying. He was doing plenty. It just wasn't stacking into anything, because there was no structure underneath it to hold what he was building. Two things changed that. Someone willing to name his excuses out loud, and a system that turned ambition into an actual sequence. In his words, he accomplished more in three months than in the previous ten years. He's now producing two feature films and a TV show, and he started a company on top of it. I want to be careful here, because ten years is not wasted time. Everything he learned in those years is exactly why three months could look like that. The work was real. It just didn't have anywhere to land yet. This is a long game. But a long game with a system moves very differently than a long game without one. Comment TATT and I'll tell you more. ❤️ #actingcareer #workingactor #actormindset
I've been quiet about AI for a while. Here's where I've been quiet about AI for a while. Here's where I actually stand. Comment HUMAN and I'll send you my full take.
You haven't talked to your agent in six months and You haven't talked to your agent in six months and you're calling it not being a pest. 👇 That's not professionalism. That's fear wearing a nice outfit. And I get it. Somewhere along the way actors got taught that the respectful thing is to stay out of your rep's way and wait to be summoned. So you sit there. You refresh your email. You watch other actors post their audition stories. And you tell yourself you're being easy to work with. Here's what that silence is actually costing you: They could be submitting you constantly and you'd never know. They pitch, and most of the time nothing comes back. Not a no. Just nothing. The quiet you're reading as proof that nothing's happening is often the sound of somebody working on your behalf. ✨ Or they're just not writing for you right now. This industry ebbs and flows. And when you see another actor booking a ton of auditions, ask honestly: are they even the same brand as you? Are they in your niche? If not, you're comparing your season to somebody else's completely different season. Or they're working from a version of you from two years ago. And that one? That one your silence created. 🔥 Your agent can only sell you with what you've given them to sell. Old footage, no idea you just did a play, no clue you write your own work or that your look has changed. They're out there pitching a stranger. So stop calling the check-in a bother. The check-in is the job. Send the new footage. Tell them what you booked, what you wrote, what you trained in, who you met. Tell them the three casting offices you want to be in front of. Give them something to say about you that isn't two years old. Because your agent can open doors. You still have to build the career that makes people want to keep opening them. 💬 Send this to an actor who hasn't emailed their rep since spring. #actor #actorslife #acting #actingcareer #workingactor talentagent actorrepresentation auditions castingdirector actingtips selftape newyorkactor losangelesactor actortips
Your clothes are already talking. Here's the thin Your clothes are already talking. Here's the thing. Before you say a word, before you read a single line, people have already made decisions about you. Your wardrobe is part of your brand whether you built it on purpose or grabbed whatever was clean. So I sat down with Buckley Sampson of Image by Buckley and asked her what I actually wanted to know. First, the biggest misconception actors have about image and styling. Her answer was immediate. Actors think it costs a lot. So they put it off, tell themselves it's for later, for when they're booking more, for when there's money. Meanwhile they keep showing up in whatever's in the closet and wondering why the room isn't reading them right. It doesn't have to be expensive. But it is costing you something if you’re leaving it up to fate. If you have ever stood in front of your closet before a self-tape with no idea what works, this one is for you. Watch the full conversation, then save it for your next shoot day. 🎥 Make sure to follow @imagebybuckley #actingcareer #actorbranding #selftape
Actors are great at asking what to do next. We're Actors are great at asking what to do next. We're less practiced at asking why we're doing any of it. These seven questions come up constantly in my coaching, and they tend to shake something loose. Not because they're clever, but because most of us have never actually sat down and answered them honestly. A few of them sting a little. Number 5 especially. The story we tell about why we're not further along is usually the most protected thing we own, and it's almost never fully true. You don't need to answer all seven. Pick the one that made you uncomfortable and give it ten minutes with a pen. That's it. You're exactly where you need to be. Sometimes you just need to hear yourself say it out loud on paper first. Save this for a quiet morning. And tag an actor who'd sit with these. 🤍 #actormindset #actorlife #actingcareer
Somewhere along the way, actors got taught that if Somewhere along the way, actors got taught that if it isn't hard, it doesn't count. So we stay busy. We submit constantly. We take the class and then the next class. Busy starts to feel like proof that we're serious about this. But struggle and effort are not the same thing. Effort is aimed at something. Struggle is just friction. I know this might not be what you want to hear, but working harder is usually not the thing that moves an actor from one to the other. It's doing fewer things on purpose, in an order that makes sense. Flow isn't a personality trait or a lucky season. It's what happens when you stop guessing what to do next. Comment QUIZ and I'll send you the 2-minute quiz that names what's actually stalling you. 🎬 #actingcareer #actormindset #actorlife
Follow on Instagram
Actor Insider by Jodie Bentley

©2024 Actor Insider. All Rights Reserved.

WordPress Theme by OptimizePress