How To Network & Make Yourself Valuable To A Casting Office

What a great question. Basically you just want to use your common sense and be the kind of person you would want someone to be if you were their boss.

Take initiative and ask people if you can help them when you are done with whatever tasks they have given you.

Introduce yourself to everyone in the office and try to find things in common with them and form friendships. Just be as helpful and friendly as possible. Really, that is the only thing you have to worry about.

Once you separate yourself as a serious, interesting, and interested person they will start to take a real interest in you. Just do the best possible job you can and put in as many hours as you can.

Match your skills to the skills you perceive they might need.

No matter what happens, always keep a positive attitude and don’t let whatever problems they are having affect how you are. If someone yells at you, don’t worry about it. It’s their problem and not yours. Whatever negativity they present to you, just let it go. Keep being positive, open minded, and open hearted.

If you can stay open you can adapt to situations as they change and you can come up with alternatives. If someone says we don’t hire interns then ask them for a referral to someone who does. Whatever negative they give you try to turn it into some kind of positive. If they need someone in a pinch… you are available (of course assuming you are).

The more available you can make yourself to these people, the more they will call upon you to do things for them and the deeper your relationship will become. This will eventually lead to opportunities such as auditions and introductions to other people in the business.

I always like ​​​to compare acting ​​to other professions.

If you wanted to be a blacksmith, you would go do the lowest level work to begin with. You’d demonstrate how good of a worker you are, how good it is to have you around, and how helpful you can be. Then, when you mastered the lower level stuff, they’d give you higher level stuff to do and so on until you were considered a professional blacksmith. At that point, the owner of the shop would either say, “I can​​​’t​ ​​teach you anything more so go open your own shop,” or, “I am retiring so why don​​’t you take over my shop?”

Do the same thing with acting like you would if you wanted to be a blacksmith… or something else like a doctor or lawyer. Start low and become really good at everything you do and keep seeking new and better responsibilities.

It really won’t be long before you are practically running the place.

I just always made sure that when I was done with whatever task I had I didn’t sit around complaining or doing nothing. I got up out of my chair and I asked anyone and everyone what I could do for them. Can I take out your trash? Can I go pour you a coffee? I am going to Starbucks. Do you want a coffee?

Make yourself useful.

Before long I was running the casting sessions for CSI on the lot at Universal Studios. In a few days I had my first audition for CSI and then I booked it.

Once they know​​, like​​, ​and trust you, they actually want to hire you.

I felt sorry for the other actors I was up against because if I did a good job​​, I knew they would want to hire me. People always want to hire people they know before strangers. ​

You don’t have to ask for an internship specifically. The way I like to approach things now is trying to figure out what I can do and what I think they might need done. Tell them that you are really good at such and such and can help them with that.