Many auditions begin with a casting agent scrolling past your online casting profile on their laptop. Sometimes they find you from an advanced search on a talent resource website. What do they usually type on the search bar, you ask? There are literally millions of characters in the thousands of stories that exist, so casting directors categorize these potential roles into a few words, which is called a type.
Casting directors already have this specific look in mind when searching for actors to fill roles. What types of characters do you think you, as an actor, look like and will always be cast to play? If you think you were meant to play leading lady roles, that may not be how casting directors perceive your look. To them, you may look like a rebel, the girl next door, or the quirky best friend. It’s not who you are, or what you do, or what you know that counts. Type, for an actor, is simply about what other people think of you.
euni.deAn actor who knows their type well and prepares their portfolio by aiming their headshots, monologues, and auditions toward that type will be more successful than an actor who doesn’t know theirs.
How Do You Know Your Type as an Actor?
Typing is a way to organize and categorize the thousands of names and faces that casting directors and producers see every day. How do you know what’s yours?
Familiarize the common types throughout history.
To understand types better, actors can study some of the popular, recurring types throughout history and see if they belong to one of these:
- Knight in shining armor
- Mad scientist
- Ingenue
- Outcast
- Dumb blonde
- Leading man
- Leading lady
- Dumb jock
- Queen bee
- Struggling artist
- Boy next door
- Funny best friend
- Cranky old man
- Reluctant hero
- Femme fatale
- Damsel in distress
- Bad boy
- Loyal servant
coolentertainmentIn literature, an actor type is termed as stock character. For more examples, here’s a lengthy list from Wikipedia.
Look at yourself in the mirror and talk to yourself.
Be brutally honest with yourself. Part of understanding your type is knowing that you are different in life than the characters you play on the stage or screen. Study your facial features and begin asking yourself questions. What ages can you play? Can you play the role of a middle-school student or a middle-aged businessman? What are your most noticeable physical traits? Do you have a receding hairline? Do you have sleepy eyes? Are you a captivating redhead? Do you have a cunning smile? How do you sound? Do you sound smart and articulate when you talk? Do you sound tough? Do you sound sarcastic?
Ask friends, family, mentors, and colleagues.
Since type is all about how other people perceive you, asking other people, therefore, is the most important step in determining what your type is. Actors like to fight this and say, “But I’m so much more than my type!” You’re not supposed to disagree or argue. You may not like their answers, but it is important to listen and respect their opinions. After all, you may have a vision of yourself that is different from how the world sees you. Again, it’s not about who you think you are. More importantly, ask people who work in entertainment that will be honest with you. Actor friends, coaches, and directors with whom you have a good relationship are the best for this.
glassdoorLook up actors with the same type.
This will feel funny, but doing this brings you to auditions for roles you’ll have a presumably higher success rate in. Once you’ve come up with a synthesis from the answers you’ve gathered after studying yourself in the mirror and asking around, find actors who have the same type as you and review their performances in projects where they played such type. Are you really a Josh Gad? A Brad Pitt? A Sacha Baron Cohen? A Christina Ricci? An Amy Adams? A Johnny Depp? A Megan Fox? A Hilary Duff? Once you see yourself in the right type, you’ll find yourself auditioning in the right direction. Imagine Josh Gad forcing himself into the leading man type. Don’t you think it would have been harder for him?
Now that you know what your type is, go update your actor’s profile with all the details you now know you have. This way, it becomes easier for casting directors to find you for roles that actually fit.
