Unscripted: Grab an Actor
Grabbing an actor doesn’t just mean pulling a few in to do a table read. I’m challenging you to grab an actor with your words. Make them want to beat…
Grabbing an actor doesn't just mean pulling a few in to do a table read. I'm challenging you to grab an actor with your words. Make them want to beat out every other actor for that role -- not because they want an acting credit, but because they are dying to play THAT role. The role YOU created.
Next week I'm on a panel at Screen Actors Guild Foundation in NYC with Michael Kostroff (Actor, "The Wire"), Pal Schnee (Casting Director), Emily Grace (Career Coach) and Gary King (screenwriter, producer, director).
I'm excited to learn from the other panelists and to hear actors' perspectives on the industry.
Screenwriting isn't just about satisfying our own desires to create stories. It's about attracting actors to the characters we create, creating a vision a director wants to bring to life, and writing a story that makes a producer have to turn the page, knowing he/she can rally behind raising the millions of dollars it will take to bring your words to life.
Never forget you need all of them to make your dreams come true. Don't fight it. Learn from it.
Related Articles:
- Balls of Steel: Cast 'Em
- Ask the Expert: No Shortcuts to Success
- Ask the Expert: Creating Characters to Attract Actors
Tools to Help:
Jeanne Veillette Bowerman is a Senior Executive at Pipeline Media Group and Book Pipeline, Editor-in-Chief of Pipeline Artists, Director of Symposium—a year-round conference in the arts, co-host "Reckless Creatives" podcast, partner at Fringe Press, former Editor-in-Chief of Script magazine and a former Senior Editor at Writer's Digest. Recognized as one of the "Top 10 Most Influential Screenwriting Bloggers," her "Balls of Steel" column was selected as recommended reading by Universal Writers Program. A compilation of her articles is now available at The Writers Store—Balls of Steel: The Screenwriter's Mindset. She is also Co-Founder and moderator of X's weekly screenwriters’ chat, #Scriptchat, and wrote the narrative adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Slavery by Another Name, with its author, Douglas A. Blackmon, former senior national correspondent of The Wall Street Journal. More information can be found on her website. X: @jeannevb | IG/Threads: @jeannevb_ | BlueSky: @jeannevb.bsky.social
