Dear Casting Agent

In the last (almost) two years, I’ve worked with a variety of production houses, ad agencies, and casting agents, before which I worked in what was primarily a communications job as a product manager. I’ve dealt with angry customers, unreasonable deadlines, and a stressful job. I’ve learned a lot from my managers and mistakes, and hope that my feedback/gripes/requests/pleas below will help someone else. Also, I can’t speak for everyone so when I use collective terms like ‘we’, it’s just me hoping that I’m not alone in how I feel.

Please be reasonable — with your requests and responses.

1. If you’re calling at 10 pm for an audition, be flexible with your demands. Expecting us to procure extremely specific costumes or props at a moment’s notice is not done. I’m not going to be able to get into a saree and make a dosa and put on a full face of makeup and set up a tripod and have someone read lines with me in the dead of the night. I understand that as actors we have to put in effort to nail an audition, but if we say we need another half day to find someone to read lines or need to mime something instead of procuring the prop, please bear with us or give us more time.
2. As actors and models we also have a brand we want to create for ourselves, there are roles we want to do and roles we don’t want to do and it should be okay for us to turn something down. Following which, demeaning actors to try to get your work done is just mean. Telling them “This is all you’ll get for your age/skin color” etc. is not okay. There will always be more work, more options, more opportunities.

Please respect our time:

1. If something has changed about the shoot or if we haven’t been selected, let us know so we can plan our work accordingly. There’s nothing worse than having 5 different “tentative” calendar entries and not knowing how your week is actually going to pan out. More than being upset that we were not selected, we’ll be grateful that we can open up that day for something else.
2. If you call and we say we can’t talk now please don’t say “I just need two minutes..” and continue talking. We will call back, you can call back.
3. Same thing goes for shoots, if it’s half a day, say half a day, say full day. Don’t say “Just an hour or two” when you KNOW it’ll be more. It makes it easier for everyone if we know how much time the gig will take.
4. Most of us are balancing other gigs and other work so if we ask for specific time slots or tell you we’re not available on a certain day, we’re not trying to make your life difficult. I’ve worked with too many casting agents who try things like “Can you move the other thing? Can you cancel it? Can you go late? Can you leave early?” If you expect me to stick to my commitments to you, you must know that I’m not going to move my prior commitments the same way. Sure, a lunch or meeting with a friend, I’ll move, but if it’s another shoot or rehearsal or work related, then no. I’m not trying to make your life difficult, I just have other work.

Please understand that yours is primarily a communication job:

1. We understand that your job is stressful and that you’re working with tight deadlines, but handling the stress of your job is on you, it’s not to be passed on to actors/models. I’ve dealt with incredibly stressed out casting agents who end up being mean, unreasonable and rude when talking to actors/models. Communication is the core of your job, please remember that. I’ve worked with lots of incredibly kind, polite, organized casting agents also, it’s not impossible.
2. Please be communicative about pay. Actors and models usually work on credit. We know and understand that payments usually take time to come in, but keep us in the loop. If you know a payment will be delayed, let us know. If you need a bunch of details in the invoice, let us know ahead of time so we don’t have to delay payment with “these details were missing”. If you’re going to send 2398429384 messages before the shoot, you can reply with 1 or 2 after the shoot. Disappearing after a gig when we want to talk about payment and money is not cool.

If you’re a casting agent, please give me feedback on this. Let me know if I’m missing something, if this piece is misguided or unreasonable.

If you’re an actor or model, let me know how you handle this. Let me know if you’ve experienced this or some other recurring issue.

Let’s talk this out.

Sincerely,

A struggling actor

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