Well, that's not the solution - at least, not exactly.
Assume for a moment that your agent has 30 clients. Assume he works ten hours a day. If he treats every client equally, the most he can spend on your career - submitting, talking about, meeting with and negotiating for you - is 20 minutes per day.
Naturally, the time he spends on your career on any given day will vary. But, if he takes more than 20 minutes, another client loses out completely. In other words, there will be many days when your agent won't be working for you at all.
No agent will ever work as hard for you as you'd like him to. He's not your savior. Theatrical agent Mort Schwartz sums it up: "The prime job of an agent is not to help an actor seek work. It is to negotiate contracts and to open doors."
What Your Agent Legitimately Should Expect From You
- To get work on your own: Especially when you're new. Frankly, when starting out, think of your agent as the person you call after you've gotten the job - to negotiate the deal. That way you won't be disappointed when he doesn't call and pleasantly surprised when he comes up with an interview or two.
- To be active and visible: A life on the beach will net you two things: a tan and no work. Show your talents: do plays, showcases. Stay fresh: take all sorts of classes and seminars. Publicize your activities: if you're in something important enough, take out an ad in the trades {Hollywood Reporter and/or Variety). If it's a play, send out postcards, resumes, and photos. Theatrical agent Vikki Bandlow says, "I get inspired by someone who's out there doing."
- Be a fantastic auditioner: Including cold readings, interviews, showcases, etc. You're only entitled to do badly occasionally.
- Be on time and don't miss interviews: "There is nothing worse after you've built up an actor to a casting director for him not to be available for an interview," says agent Doris Ross. Your regular job isn't your agent's concern. He's not going to understand that your boss can't spare you from the typing pool.
- Be "reachable": Use answering services, call-forwarding, message machines, etc. Your agent should be able to talk to you in person no later than 30 minutes after his first call. "The first time you don't check your service or machine, as God is my witness, is the day you get the call," says theatrical agent Mary Spencer. If you're out, call your answering service or machine, or the receptionist at your agency, and ask him to check if you're "clear." And be sure to notify your agent when you go out of town. Theatrical agent Pat Doty sums up the feelings of all agents when she says, "When an agent is out there busting his tush to get you roles, you better damn well be where he can find you."
- Keep your agent well-heeled in resumes and resume shots: Periodically check with him to be sure he won't suddenly get caught short.
- Keep your Academy Players Directory listing current.
- Keep in touch: On the average, no more than once a week; no less than once every two weeks. As personal manager Mel Becker says, "If every client called his agent once a day and spoke to him for five minutes, he'd spend all his time on the phone talking to clients and never get any work done."
- Come up with ideas: If a show is casting and you know the producer, remind your agent.
- Pay him his commission.
Here's a start from theatrical agent Pat Doty: "My feeling as an agent is that I'm responsible to you as a human being. I'm dealing in your life and your career and I better damn well do a good job for you if I possibly can.
And, to be specific, you should expect. . .
- To be submitted and talked about: At the least! If he's not doing that, he doesn't deserve you.
- To be told the truth: A lot of smoke is blown at actors, not only about submissions (a very difficult thing to check), but in the entire actor-agent relationship.
- To be submitted singly: If an actor from your agency is auditioning for the same part, check to find out if he was called in by someone, or if your agent submitted him along with you. In the latter case, your agent isn't playing fair - not by a long shot.
- To represent and negotiate for you not only well, but in good faith: When submitting you, your agent is a salesman. But, when you get a part, he's got to grow fangs and battle for every dime and piece of billing he can get. But he can't negotiate in a vacuum. He knows, sooner or later, that he's going to be back knocking on the casting director's door with resume shots in hand, acting like a salesman again.
Don't constantly ask your agent to stick his neck out for you. But he shouldn't be Chicken Little all the time either.
For example, continually asking your agent to go over a casting director's head to producers you know places the agent's entire client list in jeopardy with the casting director. But, if you know a producer will see you for a part and the casting director has refused to call you in, as long as you don't make a habit of it, you'd be right to press your agent to call the producer. If he refuses, he may be too worried about irking people. And this is no business for irk-shirkers.
- He should keep an office that's decent and organized: We're leery of an agent operating out of his home. Not professional. If he has pictures scattered all over the place, we'd worry whether we'd get lost in the stack. Yep, neatness counts. In his stationery, too. And in his submissions. Even in the way he dresses.
- He should return your calls and inquiries: (But not if you're constantly bugging him.) As one agent put it: "A lot of agents don't want to hear from their clients - ever. That's notorious in this town. Actors say, 'Well, they didn't call me back at William Morris; now they're not calling me back at ICM.' "
- He should follow up on your suggestions: Want to climb a wall? Suggest an approach to your career and have your agent greet it with an excited yawn.
- He should be interested in and see your work: In a play, movie or TV show? He should be in the audience. When you put together an expensive presentation tape, he should look at it.
