"Auditions can be hell." says Paul Russell, an award-winning casting director, director, former actor, and author, as he launches his Fall '08 national book tour discussing his new, blunt, often hilarious, entertainment-industry insider book ACTING-Make It Your Business: How to Avoid Mistakes and Achieve Success as a Working Actor.
Visiting universities and booksellers in New York, Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia Russell, along with guest speaker Jack Menashe, president of New York talent agency Independent Artists, candidly responds to actors, in a Q&A regarding pitfalls and strategies for a performing artist's career in the industry.
"When a diminutive actress brought in a five-foot tall step ladder as a prop for her audition to sing Climb Every Mountain", Russell began about one of the thousands of performers he has encountered, "and year after year I was getting bombarded by trained and untrained actors sending me marketing materials that made Val-Pak appear chic, I just wanted to scream 'STOP! Shut up and listen! You're trashing your career!'" And with actors making these and similar paralyzing career mistakes in auditions, on-and-off stage and screen Russell decided to put his candid words of wisdom for actor success to font.
Russell has been in the entertainment industry for more than 25 years beginning as a successful working actor, then becoming an award-winning casting director and director. He has worked on projects for Twentieth Century Fox, HBO,
Warner Brothers, Broadway, and regional theater. With ACTING-Make It Your Business, he writes of many actor successes and failures. Actors familiar with Russell know that when he speaks, he cuts directly to the point, often, but not always, with tact.
"I think of ACTING-Make It Your Business as Hardball for actors," Russell's comments, likening his book to the tough questioning politicos endure from MSNBC journalist
Chris Matthews. But Russell wants to make actors aware that while he's tough, he has plenty of empathy for them. "My sometimes fiery tone in this book, which often breaks FCC standards, is not because I'm mean-spirited. I was an actor prior to jumping the audition table. I know the hell that actors live in order to survive. Many of my casting colleagues and I have grown frustrated encountering far too many actors making mistakes they can't see for themselves. Some large-like one actor who inappropriately turned his audition into a strip show -and some smaller but just as damaging. The entertainment industry is all about image, image, image. The actors who don't know that or understand how to market and brand themselves properly, are the actors forever waiting tables."
Besides covering all the necessities for an actor's career-cutting-edge audition, marketing, and networking strategies, combining traditional techniques with those best suited for the digital age, where best to train, audition technique, how to find and keep an agent, plus the ins and outs of negotiating a contract-Russell also includes the valuable opinions and advice of industry power agents and well-known actors throughout ACTING-Make It Your Business.
"Emmy winner
Charlotte Rae (best known as Mrs. Garret from The Facts of Life)," Russell begins, "
Robert LuPone (
Patti LuPone's actor brother and Dean of The New School for Drama) plus veteran stage and screen actor
James Rebhorn (The Talented Mr. Ripley, Scent of A Woman, Law & Order) along with many other great actors were very generous in giving of themselves to ACTING-Make It Your Business. All participated with the hope of helping their peers succeed." Russell included other perspectives because he didn't want his voice to be the reader's sole advisor.
"I write at the beginning of the book, 'Everything I say is right. Everything I say is wrong. There are many conflicting opinions in this industry. Take what works best for you.' And that's why I asked respected talent agents and successful, continuously working actors to help me help actors have better, stronger careers. I want to help actors get jobs. That's my job. More than anything that's why I wrote ACTING-Make It Your Business."
ACTING Make It Your Business – How To Avoid Mistakes & Achieve Success as a Working Actor hits all major book sellers by the end of September and is presently for sale at popular online retailers. Tour dates, times and locations can be found at
www.ActingMakeItYourBusiness.com.
