Day 1 - The Hunt for An Agent

Agents Contacted:5
Responses: 0

So it's Day 1 of my search proper to find myself a new agent. Don't worry, I don't intend to write every day about this rather dull search. I realise that would be boring for everyone involved (mainly me) but I will try and update you all as regularly as possible so you can share a tiny piece of my fruitless hunt.

My aim (at the moment) is to write to 5 agents a day. This means that I'm not just doing blanket submissions and actually thinking carefully about the agents I'm getting in touch with and making sure that they're agents I actually like the look of. Also, applying to agents isn't the most fun job in the world and it means I won't get bored, wonder what the heck I'm doing with my life and run down the road screaming with my character skirt pulled over my head. So, 5 agents have been contacted so far and that means, hopefully, by Friday, I'll have passed on my meagre details to 20 agents. If I carry on at this rate then I'll have written to 1650 agencies by the end of the year and will likely have lost the will to live. If I haven't had at least one favourable response by 31 December then you all have the right to tell me to give up and get a proper job. I promise. Or you can at least give me a gentle pat on the back while I weep uncontrollably through New Year's Eve celebrations.

When I was last looking for an agent, I had the idea of creating a spreadsheet so I could keep track of those I'd already contacted to make sure I wasn't just targetting the same poor fool every day. Creating Excel spreadsheets is the most glorious form of procrastination as it makes you feel like you're actually working and doing something positive when really you've just found another way to not do any real work. I decided that I should probably do the same again so opened up the old file to have a little look. I was quite lucky last time as in the midst of writing to agents (I was a bit slack with it last time and maybe writing to a couple a week) an agent actually approached me and, well, you all know how that story recently ended. However, it seems I wrote to 20 agents last time. Out of those I received 5 flat "No's" or, as they're known in the business, "Go away and leave us alone. We won't make a bean out of you." I had meetings with 2, one who turned me down and another that I turned down and then a lovely 13 who never got back to me. So, 10% meetings, 25% "NO!" and 65% "Lalalalalaalalala(is she still there? Damn, she is.)lalalalalalalalalala." It's no wonder my energies were not even half-baked.

So let's see what happens this time. I bet you can't bloody wait.

The Search Begins

As an actor, one of the first things you’re asked, after when you’re going to be in EastEnders and what kind of acting you like to do, will be whether you have an agent. Now, if you follow me on Twitter or read my blog regularly then you’ll know that I was recently made agentless. It’s a weird feeling that puts you somewhere in between elation and rejection; you’re delighted that you’ve finally shed  someone who mainly put you up for jobs that would get you out of the country for as long as possible but at the same time, you’ve just been dumped and feel a bit useless.

So, the hunt for a new agent begins. The thought of it already makes me feel tired. The searching for agents, looking through their client list, thinking they look perfect, the annoyance of seeing they already have someone who looks exactly like you, the frustration that they’ll only take on clients who are currently in something. All those things are waiting for me. All those things are waiting to frustrate me and make me wish I’d chosen a far easier job, like rocket science or plucking needles from haystacks.

I therefore thought it might be interesting to chronicle what it’s like hunting for a new agent. I mean, it’s highly likely that it’ll be utterly tedious but you never know, one tiny thing might come out of it that someone might possibly find useful. Also I need an excuse to procrastinate and while my career is more quiet than a pin dropping in a vacuum, I need to find something to write about other than daily rants about unpaid work. 

So today I started gently by sending my CV to a few agents that lovely kind people on Twitter had recommended. I have nothing to show them apart from my gurning face and a few grainy clips online so who knows what will happen. It’ll serve me right if they head to Twitter and mock me for all I’m worth but hopefully, if miracles really do happen, maybe just one of them will bite. So get ready my lovely readers for tales of woe, despair and general wonderings on what the heck a rester has to do round here to get a break. You better hope someone snaps me up quick.

Just Drop It

Being dropped. Apart from the acting nightmare that every performer has where they haven’t learnt their lines for a show opening that night, being dropped by an agent is probably what every actor fears most. And it’s not necessarily because you love your agent so much that you’re sad to see them go. It’s the rejection and that horrible feeling that you’re not wanted any more.

Followers of my Twitter account will know that I was dropped by my agent recently. You’d hope that when your agent decides they don’t want you any more that they might get you in for a meeting and discuss where things have gone wrong. Even though the decision has already been made, you’d hope that there could still be some discussion. Sadly this wasn’t the case with me. Oh no. I found out via email while I was out shopping. It’s quite something to find out you’re being culled while browsing the reduced items in Waitrose. Rejection plus half price mushrooms do not make for feelings of confidence. Believe me.

I’m sure I was meant to be upset but the sheer disbelief of reading this news on my phone very quickly blocked my tear ducts. Disbelief turned to rage which then turned to me angrily muttering to myself in the crisp aisle. Once I’d got over the anger of being dumped via the internet, I then turned the anger on to myself as I questioned why I hadn’t got in there first. Although lovely, my agents hadn’t done me any good over the last year. They’d secured me the equivalent of one audition a month and unfortunately I hadn’t managed to get any of those roles so it’s safe to say that I wasn’t best pleased. The majority of the castings they did get me were for jobs that I really wasn’t suitable for and one of the last jobs they put me up for was for an open audition where I was mainly performing alongside 16 year olds. All the acting work I got last year, I’d got myself so clearly something wasn't working.  If we’d be in a relationship then I’m sure my mum would’ve put her hat back into storage sometime around September.

Of course there was upset there too. You have the doubts over whether you’re in the right job. Maybe this is the wake-up call you need to realise that you’re not good enough and you need to start thinking of a new career. But if we gave up at the first sign of rejection then most actors’ careers would last about as long as a bag of crisps in my greedy hands. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong. I went up for every single audition they got me and I did all I could to try and get the part. Sadly just some things don’t work out and my year with my agent just so happened to be one of those ill-fated things.  

As I told people about what had happened, once they’d gotten over the email method, I found myself using the term ‘blessing in disguise’ at such a rate that ‘end of the day’ was getting worried about being bumped off the top spot. And I felt fine. Not in a ‘you should really remove all sharp objects from north London’ type way in but in a ‘this is actually bloody exciting way.’ As actors we’re taught that having an agent is the most important thing in the world. And it’s true that a good agent can be more precious than a Nando’s Black Card. But get yourself a bad agent and you might as well ask your resident kitchen mouse to put you up for work. 

I can honestly say that my acting career has been at its best when I’ve been looking after myself and while I of course I wouldn’t say no to a good agent, there’s something exciting about being in charge of your own career. It makes you work that little bit harder and you’re not constantly worrying about your agent calling with an audition for a vaguely paid touring show just 10 minutes after you’ve got yourself a £12 an hour temp job. It’s surprisingly liberating to be back in control and know that I’m not going to wake up tomorrow morning to find out that I’m going to an audition where I have to spend three hours pretending to be a sloth while attempting to play the harmonica. 

So now everything’s down to me. Which is basically how it was before I was dropped from an exceedingly low height. Business as usual, then.  

Despair

I realise I've spoken about agents before. I'm aware that I have mentioned before just how useless the one agent I've had was. He was about as useful as my voicereel is (in the four years that I've had it, it's secured me one quite poorly paid job.) His accent meant that I rarely knew what I was going up for and he understood the acting industry about as well as I understand anything written in the FT. His frustrating behaviour meant that I had several arguments with him, the worst being via text while I was at a dull day job. I'd promised to cover for a friend and I was in desperate need of the money to pay for my Spotlight membership so there was absolutely no way that I was backing out of this. But of course, because Sod is in charge of all laws, my agent's assistant rang at 7pm the night before telling me that I had a casting the next day. I explained that I was working a morning shift tomorrow and that the notice they'd given me wasn't enough to get out of it. She totally understood and said the morning slot was the only one available so I carried on with my productive evening of eating economy cheese and wondering how to make a buck out of my ever-increasing pile of agency rejection letters. The next day, while at work, my phone buzzes. It's my agent trying to phone me but I'm working for the one man less understanding than my agent and am unable to answer. A voicemail is left and I'm forced to crawl under the desk to listen to it. It's my agent telling me that I need to be at the audition and that I should be wearing a blue shirt. While crouched under the desk and keeping one eye on my bosses door, I text him back. The following text conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi. I'm really sorry but I'm unable to attend the audition. I explained to (Miss Useless Assistant) that I'm working and couldn't get out of it. She said that was fine. Sorry for any mixup caused.

Him: I'd like you to find a way to go to the audition. We've changed your audition slot 1pm (it was 12.30 and I was a good 40 minutes away.)

Me: I'm sorry but I can't just leave. Even if I could, I wouldn't be able to make it in time and I don't have a blue shirt with me nor do I have the money to buy one on the way.

Him: You need to decide what it more important to you. You've put me in a very compromising position with a very important casting director. I'm not happy about this at all.

After this I decided to leave things before I pointed out that he'd previously failed to contact me for a whole six months and that I was currently spending all my free time desperately trying to get with any other agency just so I could be away from them. I emailed him an apology when I got home and he said sorry for being the meanest man in the West and we carried on our unfulfilling professional relationship for another year. 

When we did finally part ways, they said they would be happy to take me back should I want to return and I have to admit that those parting words have stuck with me. Over the last couple of months as I struggle to find representation. I've been wondering whether I should just cast my pride aside and go back with them. However, this email I found earlier from them is a glorious reminder as to why I would never return...

Hi,

Reece Witheredspoon  and Jake Gyllenhall wants to know if you speak Arabic, so , do you and if so to which level?

 

Thanks

I think I might be best on my own for now...