Beginners

Yes, I get letters like this all the time and so do most other coaches…

“…I’m new to acting and I have absolutely zero experience, which means no resume, no video or audio real to submit to agencies or projects. I see that you’ve been doing this for a great number of years and wanted to see what class you’d recommend for someone who’s just starting out…”

My Answer

Dear Beginner,

You don’t want to get the cart before the horse. You can’t expect to get an agent to represent you with zero experience and they don’t really want a demo unless it’s from actual jobs. Yes, you need stuff on your resume but you can’t get that without learning to act and to audition. So do that first. Put in 6 months or a year building your skill as an actor and then see what you can do. Meanwhile, you can audition for student films, indies, and freebies to build your resume.

There are tons of acting coaches working in Austin now and the important thing is to actually work at acting. Try out a few classes and find one that suits you. My coaching philosophy is fairly easy: anybody can act because acting…especially on film…is just living. The mechanisms are the same even if you are playing another character instead of yourself.

I focus on giving actors as much actual acting work as possible…two or three scenes every class, taped for home viewing as a learning tool. Scenes from every genre….you need to exercise all the Muscles…including the ones outside of your “type”. I also believe in mixing the class …beginners work alongside pros because that way they get to learn from watching good acting. It doesn’t hold back the pros because I’ll give them “A” scenes while you, the beginner, would get more basic things to start with.

Also, I let you take just one class at a time so you don’t have to commit to a long series up front. So if it’s too swift for you, you can go elsewhere. Good luck! And let me know if you’d like to try a class. I don’t do audits so you’d have to pay $40 to see what I’ve got.

Best,
Marco Perella