Hi,
I can understand you!
I'm an ex corporate guy, a senior manager, who after many years in a company I loved, great salary, great career possibilities, decided to pursue my dreams of becoming an entrepreneur, actor, author and motivational speaker. I'm doing all those things now. I even created some resources for people who have similar questions as you do, because I have seen people take their dreams with them into old age and to their graves, because they didn't have the knowledge, the ability or the courage to pursue their dreams.
When I left that company, I had a chance to talk to the world-wide president who asked my why I was leaving. I told him that as much as I loved that company, there was something I just had to do. I didn't want to wake up one day when I'm in my 80's and say to myself, "I wonder how my life would have turned out if..." I would rather try and fail and start over, than to be haunted by that thought. At the end of my life, the story of my life will be what it is and I will no longer be able to change it. NOW is the time that I can change the outcome of that story.
Having said that, one of the people here said something about "going about it the right way." I agree 150%! And that's why I even wrote a book about it.
For me what I'm about to write is about how to find the courage to change your life and have a good probability of success. It's about the basis for change. These principles are important for your acting career as well, but are really rules for success for any new career path you choose. There are 4 key factors for success:
1) KNOWING YOURSELF AND FIGURING OUT EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT: greater knowledge of yourself: strengths, weaknesses, resources you have at your disposal (and not only financial!)
Clarity of your vision for the future of your career in a very detailed way. If you can do that, your actions will be more focused and you will waste less time and energy. To put it in a positive sense, you will optimize your efforts and probably get results faster.
2) DEVELOPING YOUR MOTIVATION & CREATIVITY: The ability to keep yourself motivated to do what is necessary daily to further your career. Knowing how to do that will help you tremendously!
The creativity and innovation to apply in promoting yourself and helping you to stand out. You can imagine how important that will be with all the competition there is!
3) PUTTING TOGETHER A PLAN: a solid and detailed plan for how you intend to achieve that vision. Many people think that planning is writing some stuff down on a piece of paper and doing those things. There’s much more to it than that!
4) MANAGING YOUR BUSINESS: essential business skills that will help you to be successful as the free-lance professional that you are as an actor. Unfortunately many actors don't realize that they are in business, with a product to sell and promote, that is themselves.
With regard to how to get started in acting. I would recommend the following:
It's important to know what it really means to be a working actor. Maybe you already know. I don't have much information about you other than what you wrote.
Here are some of the issues that actors face before they even get close to working:
Forgive me, but if list them, my space for this answer will be cut short. I have already written the issues actors face on my site on the following page: http://www.actingcareerstartup.com
There are certainly more issues that actors face. At any rate, this is the reality. I certainly don't want to rain on your parade, but I say all this to let you know, something that you already know which is that there will be a lot of things to do before you get there. You will need clarity about what it is you really want in your life and in your acting career, motivation, determination, thick skin, a method of planning, business skills and you will need to see how real, working actors put these things into practice.
After you've started to think more about the mission on which you are about to embark, you need to study, study, study acting. I would advise you to get information about the different acting techniques and methods that there are and then choose one. To help, look up books by:
Uta Hagen
Lee Strasberg
Sanford Meisner
Stella Adler
Here is some other information in the following link that can help you in choosing classes:
http://www.actingcareerstartup.com/acting_classes.html
Start studying the trade papers to get a feel for the industry, what's going on, what's hot, what's not, issues, casting directors who cast certain projects, agents and what they are looking for, etc.:
Backstage (or go to their website www.backstage.com)
Show Business (www.showbusiness.com)
Hollywood Reporter
Ross Reports
Theatrical Index
New York Agencies
Check out www.sag.org , www.aftra.com , www.actorsequity.com for information about the three major unions.
Lastly and maybe most importantly, you MUST realize that the person who will embark on this new mission of becoming an actor is YOU. Whether or not you are successful (and only you can define what success means to you) will depend a lot on how the industry treats you, but it also will depend largely on you. By that I mean, your attitude, your talent, your willingness to learn and be curious, your perseverance, determination and method, your clarity around what you want out of your career, your capacity to find creative solutions and creative ways to promote yourself and set yourself apart from the rest, your ability to first create a financial base so that you can concentrate fully on your craft, your ability to motivate yourself and to handle rejection, your capacity to be disciplined and plan for your success and it will also depend on your capacity to sell and market your acting ability.
I say this to say that you will need to develop and work on yourself. This is true for anyone. These aforementioned things are what many, many, many young actors overlook and thus find starting an acting career to be a difficult endeavor.
So what could your next steps be?. Find a good acting class and a good teacher. DEVELOPING YOUR SKILL AS AN ACTOR should be your number one priority while you do your homework on the indusrty! Without that skill, you probably won't go very far in this very competitive field.
Gather some information and talk to actors about what it really means to be a working actor, not the Brad Pitts and Julia Roberts', but the average Joe, out there pounding the pavement, getting jobs that last a few days at a time and who are piecing their work together by doing student films, commercials, looking for an agent, auditioning, getting rejected, doing mailings, preparing for auditions, going to class, saving up for months just to be able to get those new headshots, etc. Talk to actors who are working regularly and learn from what they’ve done. Also talk to actors who are struggling and learn from them what not to do! You'll be surprised at the number of people you talk to who are complaining about not getting work or that they don't have an agent, who after months or even years still don't have a plan! Compare your findings and put together your strategy. And have a look at the following link to start to get an idea of what a typical day could look like while looking for work.
http://www.actingcareerstartup.com/working_as_an_actor.html
One last thing. Be aware of all the other types of acting possibilities there are:
Film, television, theater are the obvious ones and even within them there are subdivisions. There is also hosting, industrials, on-camera commercials, commercial print, student films, independent films, spokesperson, stock photography.
Community Theater, student films, commercial print work and stock photography shoots could be some things you could do to get your feet wet while you are starting out.
I hope this gives you some insight and I hope to have made you think.
Best of luck in your decision!
Tony
http://www.actingcareerstartup.com