How To Start Your Acting Career Today

By Elan Irving

Don't you wish you had a step by step guide for how to build the life of your dreams? Me too.

How about a step by step guide to building your acting career? I know I did when I started. That's why I wrote it. To help YOU get from clueless to Confident! Will this book promise to make you millions and have you living

• Language: English
• Publisher: Party Barn Publications
• Release date: Jul 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781087896908

Elan Irving

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Elan Irving is a writer, photographer, entrepreneur, and actor appearing in film, television, and more. When she's not behind - or in front of - the lens she can be found hanging out with her two daughters and their many adopted pets. Elan has a teacher's heart and a wander's soul. She finds her greatest joy in helping others find freedom in the pursuit of their dreams.

Book preview

1

On Living The Dream

Or, at least giving yourself a fighting chance.

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.

- Wiliam Shakespeare

So, You Wanna Be An Actor?

P icture this: You're on a movie set. The director yells Cut!. You just finished your scene. They're calling it a day and you're checking out the footage with the rest of the crew. Your performance was great. The cinematography looks amazing. And you get to do it all again tomorrow. In a few weeks, you'll be done filming and you're taking a well-earned break for a few months before your next project. How did you get here?

Image by Jakob Owens via Unsplash

The better question is how do you go from where you are right now , sitting there reading this, to chasing after that dream? The one you've had somewhere in the back of your mind for all these years. The one you don't dare to pursue because your friends and family will call you crazy. You can hear your parents already, "You want to do what? You didn't go to acting school. Where is this all coming from?"

We all have that moment where we know . You want to do this. You need to do this. If you don't you'll always wonder what could have been. We'll call this the Moment of Realization. It can strike at any time. For me, it was like lightning on a sunny day. It came outta nowhere.

What I was doing for work was not exciting or creative. I was a contract specialist. I spent my days stuck in a 65-degree office freezing my once-perky ass off. My eyes practically bled from eight hours a day reading contracts on computer screens. And not just regular contracts, Terms, and Conditions . You know, the fine print no one ever reads.

It got so bad that I had to go see an optometrist. No, really. It was getting worse. They suggested I get glasses with the blue coating to cut the harmful light that was blasting my eyes all day. Then came the panic attacks. Having never had one, it scared the shit out of me. Every day I'd go home and need an hour or two before speaking to anyone while my brain came back to life. I knew something had to change, and fast. This job was killing me in the name of a steady paycheck. Every bit of creativity and life was being pushed into a tiny dark corner in the back of my mind for 75% of my waking hours. But, we creatives are hard to kill, aren't we?

I'd spend the whole day trying not to think about all the things I'd rather be doing. At night I'd have nightmares of waking up ten years later in the same office, in the same department. Like that cackling Karen over there in the sales department. Kudos to her for being content with a life selling industrial equipment, but I couldn't do it anymore.

Sound familiar? If you've ever worked in an office, I'm sure your story sounds eerily similar. Especially the part about freezing your ass off for ten months out of the year. How is it that the guy who's hot in the dead of