10 Tips For A Lead Role In A Movie

The film industry is filled with lots of great talent. Sometimes it seems like there are more talent than there are actual roles for all the available talent. And it’s no surprise that most actors aspire to getting a lead role in a movie. But first we need to define what a lead role is. There are different levels of lead roles depending on the production. You can write your own screen play today and cast yourself as the lead and BAM! Now you have yourself a lead role in a movie. But we’re referring to actors who want to book a lead role in someone else’s production. However, there are many levels to it. Perhaps you could get a lead role in a small independent film, student film, short film, bigger independent movie or a major Hollywood movie. Although it doesn’t seem like it, we must think about acting sometimes like a job because if it’s going to be our career then essentially it is a job. With that in mind we can compare acting to other jobs, in other industries.

Let’s discuss a scenario that is similar to getting a lead role in a movie. Let’s say I want to be hired as the president of a company, well that’s very much like being the lead of a movie. If I want to be the president of a company there are different levels of that as well. I could start my own company and make myself the president. Or if you want to be the president of someone else’s company you could be a little book store in a small town and be the president of that book store. Or you could be a slightly bigger company, maybe a chain of 10 restaurants in one state. Or hey, perhaps you could be the president of a massive corporation like Amazon. You could see how being the president of a small book store compared to being the president of Amazon is very different, even though they’re both presidents. And of course, there are many different size companies in between.

Well it’s kind of the same thing when it comes to films. You have the small to zero budget productions and you have multi-million dollar productions, and everything in between. Many actors aspire to getting a lead role in big budget productions, yet they have no experience. So now, keeping this in mind let’s consider a hypothetical scenario. Let’s hypothetically say you win the lottery, yeah we know, this hypothetical would be much sweeter if it were your reality. Let’s say you won the 100 million dollar lottery, wow, now we’re talking sweet! But with this particular lottery you don’t get all the money right away. You’re going to get it 2 years from now but in those 2 years you’re going to give the entire 100 million dollars to a financial planner and let them invest it for you. After 2 years time you get 100 million dollars back plus a lot more.

In another scenario you also have 100 million dollars, you must give it to a financial planner for 2 years and then you get the money back. But in this scenario, you get to choose between 2 different financial planners. Financial planner A has 10 years experience planning and investing money. They have already invested millions of dollars, of other people’s money and have a great track record of doing so. But financial planner B is just getting started and is very eager to start their career as a financial planner but they never did it before. At most they have invested a thousand dollars of their own money but they never invested anyone else’s money before let alone millions of dollars. So which financial planner would you trust investing your 100 million dollars with, in the next 2 years? Well I think we can all agree that we can trust the person with a great track record and 10 years of experience investing millions of dollars for their clients, because the person with no experience is too big of a risk. 100 million dollars is a lot of money, to give and trust someone with zero investing experience!

So by now you must be asking, why are we discussing this hypothetical? What does all this have to do with getting a lead role in a movie? What we have to remember is that film making in Hollywood is a business. And every major production is a 100 million dollar investment for the producers and the production companies. And when these producers are trying to cast the lead for their movie, it’s kind of like that financial planner. Because you have to trust that the lead in this movie will be able to carry this movie and hope that after 2 years, after the movie gets filmed, edited and comes out that the movie will be a success and not a flop.

Now, if you haven’t already watched the video now would be a great time. To get the full details from this blog watch the following video featuring Kurt Yue, the founder of The Acting Career Center. Thank you Kurt for contributing to this blog. The Acting Career Center actingcareercenter.com

For more help read our blog about “not getting enough auditions”

How To Get A Lead Role In A Movie