Different

In the age of digital photography it just makes sense to take a new approach to marketing yourself as an actor.


Yes, you need the natural-light shot so that your agent feels like she has a marketable product to sell. Although I'd argue it's less about "capturing your essence" or even having a headshot "that just looks like you," and more about having a familiar product to sell -- but that's a completely different discussion.


Still, there are times when it may be in your best interest to have a marketing image that is unexpected. One that is going to stand out after a long day of auditions.


Scenario One: A casting director is looking for a Macbeth. She goes to her files with the specs for what the producer has requested. Dark. Ominous. Hint of fragility. And what does she have to work with? Five thousand toothsome grins. Now, of course she's a professional, knows her talent pool and can pour through those files and pull the twenty photos and resumes she thinks are most appropriate. But what if you're the perfect Macbeth and the casting director has never met you? She sees your toothsome grin, and if you get pulled from the file, when she has to narrow those twenty photos down to the five she wants to call in for an audition, do you think she's going to choose the toothsome grin she knows, or the one she doesn't?


Scenario Two: You go to a casting call for an up-and-coming company that is doing an edgy production of Macbeth. They are having two or three days of open calls, at the end of which they're going to invite selected actors to a call back. If your audition is on day one, are you so confident that by the end of day three your brilliant audition is going to be remembered clearly? How are you helping that director remember you if you went in with your toothsome, one-shot-suits-all-occasions headshot?


Scenario Three: Everybody and his cat has a website, a visual medium. Why would you waste anyone's time with just the same toothsome grin in three versions. "Here I am smiling at the camera while wearing a green shirt. Here I am smiling at the camera in a red shirt. And here I am NOT smiling and wearing a black shirt. Hire me."


A couple of years ago Jennifer Aniston turned forty years old. Yet, still an attractive vital woman she had semi-nude photos of herself published to remind the industry and the movie-going public that she was still a player in the girlfriend archetype and romantic comedy genre. Doesn't your career deserve the same attention to detail and creativity in marketing that Jennifer Aniston's does?


In the end you have to use the marketing tools that you feel most accurately represents your artistic approach and professional comitment. But it's in your best interest to consider adding an unexpected image to your marketing toolkit to give you an edge in your quest to play Macbeth, and to level the playing field against an actress who is willing to strip to get the part you want.