- Your age or age range: Don't limit yourself. If your resume says you're 20, you're opening yourself to some casting director saying, "Oh, no, this part calls for a 22-year-old." (Bureaucrats can pop up even in this creative industry.) An age range doesn't help either. Limits you to the numbers you put on the resume.
- Any dates: All dates do is date you.
- Your Social Security number, home address or measurements: Resumes can fall into anyone's hands. When a producer hires you, he can ask you or your agent for this information. Discretion keeps creepy crawlers from entering your woodwork.
- Emphasis on your singing and dancing: This may sound like strange advice, but there are people in Hollywood who believe singers and dancers can't act. Dumb? Sure. But the attitude exists. We aren't saying to drop all those musical comedies from your resume; nor are we saying you can't put singing or dancing, perhaps, under "Special Skills." Just don't make your experience here a prominent part of your resume. Make up a separate resume for nightclub, concert or dance work.
- Your college and/or community theatre credits: Stop yelling, "That's all I've got!" and calm down. We're only saying there's no need to go out of your way to indicate those credits are from community theatre. For example, put Cambridge Theatre - not Cambridge Community Theatre. Then, as you build up your resume, drop them.
- Anything cutesy or autobiographical: For example, "I was born…" A resume is a list of your credits, not your autobiography or a forum to prove you can write comedy.
Here's a typical professional-looking resume. (Of course, your agent may want modifications.) The little black dots, by the way, are an easy graphic touch you can add by hitting the lower-case "o" on your typewriter and then filling it in with black ink.
- Your name: Note it's the most prominent thing you see.
- The agency name, etc.: Includes the name of the agency; the name of the actual agent who handles you; their address (including zip code); and their phone number (including area code).
- No agent? Move your phone number over to this spot.
- Your phone number. Use your service, if you got. Otherwise, put your home phone number, under the word "Messages." (Creepy crawler avoidance again.)
- Your four vital statistics (often called Stats or Vitals): Height, weight, hair color and eye color.
- Your unions: Use the standard abbreviations.
- BCF: Unlike a typical business resume, always put your best credits first (BCF) unless they are obviously dated. People read from the top down. Since you don't put dates, there's no need to put a bit off the hook here. At your age, nobody expects you to have a resume as long as your arm.)
Okay, now go to work, bearing in mind a quote we really like. It was on a sign hanging in the window of a resume typing service: "When they ask to see it, it better be good."
SPECIAL SKILLS: Fluent Pig Latin, sleeping, Golden Thumbnail in tiddlywinks part on a soap over a guest starring role in a series, just because you did the former more recently. Don't bury dynamite under a sea of trivia.
- Your television credits: Start with the name of the show in capital letters. Then, reading left to right, add the production company followed by any special billing. (Your agent may want you to substitute or add the character name and a one- or two-word description of the character.) No TV credits? Put the next category first.
- Your motion picture credits, listed under "Features": Same as above. In this case the actor had no special billing.
If you've only got a few (or no) feature/TV credits, put industrials, student films, anything that puts your face on film, under the heading: "Film."
- Your theatre credits, listed under "Stage": Reading left to right: The name of the play in capital letters, the name of the theatre, and the name of the character. (Add the city if you like - a good idea if they're New York credits. "Sometimes where you did it is more important than what you played," says director Noel Black.)
- Any skills or talents, listed under "Special Skills": Actors have gotten auditions because the producer needed someone who could ride a horse, speak a foreign language, shoot pool, play a musical instrument, etc. But don't over-do this. We've seen actors list every skill known to Superman, making themselves look awfully desperate. Also, be sure it relates to acting. Forget "expert tax consultant" and "black belt in muffin-making." And most important, don't bluff - if you can't really do it, don't list it. "Chopsticks" doesn't make you a pianist.
- Training: (Mr. Stunning doesn't need this, as he's got film credits.) Only have stage credits? You might list your training - especially if it deals with the industry (for example, a film technique class); if the class was in New York or a foreign country, which tends to impress; or if the instructor is well known.
- Education: That is, your college credits - B.A., M.F.A., etc. Unless these come from outstanding schools of dramatic training (such as Yale, UCLA, USC, Northwestern, Julliard, NYU), they're - well - nice. Please forgive us if we're sounding blase about four years or more of your life. It's just that a drama degree by itself isn't going to make Spielberg jump into your lap.
