Having To Represent Yourself Still Even With An Agent
Sep 8th, 2008 by Alan Yu
I was talking to an actress recently and she was mentioning how she wasn’t too thrilled with her agency representation as most of the work she has gotten herself. Apparently her agent even told her that as the actor you have to work hard to promote yourself still as the agents can only do so much for you.
That is definitely true as I guess in many ways people who are new have the mentality that once they get an agent all they need to do is sit and wait while the agent scrambles to try and find you roles to audition for. You should always definitely be promoting yourself to try and land roles yourself as well.
At the same time, I personally believe an agent should be actively trying to suggest ways for you to try and get your career going while at the same time going out of their way to get you established as well as it benefits everyone in this situation. Kind of awkward if all the person is doing for example is negotiating contracts for you. The agent and actor relationship is definitely extremely important.
Even for myself, literally all the roles I have done so far were from my own efforts. I’m personally not just sitting there and waiting for things to happen.
