23 Side Hustles for Actors That Actually Work (2026)

In this video, I'm going to be showing you 23 incredible side hustle jobs for actors and models that will allow you to pursue your dreams and still make money on the side. Okay, let's get started. Hi, I'm Aaron Marcus, and welcome to my Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel, where I teach people how to either break into the acting and modeling industry or how to take your career to the next level. If you haven't done this yet, don't forget to click the subscribe button. Click the bell notification button. That way, every time I upload a new video, you will know about it. And if you like the video, please click the like button. So I've got 23 incredible side hustle jobs. Some you might be familiar with, some you've probably never heard of before that could be invaluable to you. So I'm just going to go down the list. I'll make a little commentary for each one. And also don't forget, at the end of this video, please share with other people if there are any side hustle jobs that you have found to be really helpful. And that way we can continue sharing information with our acting and modeling family. Okay, so number 1, if you're interested in reading audiobooks, well, what you want to do is— and you can see from the link, and I'm going to be sharing links with every single topic here— Just go to theacx.com and you will be able to find out about how— and this is for Amazon— how to go about becoming a reader for audiobooks. Construction. Maybe you've got some real talents in construction and this could be a great part-time job where you work when you have to work, when you want to work, and if you need to take the day off, you can do that as well. If you are a dancer, I know people who get hired dancing at various types of parties, and this can be a great side hustle job, especially because a lot of these jobs happen on weekends, which wouldn't interfere with auditions and a lot of the bookings that you might get. Focus groups— this is really cool. You do this online and you just sign up And you're going to be asked questions and you will be making comments and give statements about things. And you get paid a pretty good amount per project. Maybe become a headshot or a commercial photographer. Now, you've got to really understand how to create an effective headshot, how to put together eye-catching commercial photos. But if that's something that you can learn how to do and you're good at it, This could be a great way to earn extra money and also make other contacts in the industry. House sitting. Maybe you can sublet your own place and you can make money just staying in somebody else's house, which is really pretty cool. A mock jury trial. This is really— it's pretty amazing. Sometimes attorneys want to get a feel, get a better understanding of the way they are presenting a case. So they will hire people to— and once again, this is all online— and, and they will present the case to people, and then you react to it and give feedback. This could be pretty cool. Murder Mystery, if that's something that you're interested in doing, this is a national company. They hire people from around the country. And once again, a lot of these are evenings and weekend gigs for you. Personal trainer. If this is something that you either have a degree in or you really know a lot about, it's flexible, no pun intended. And you can actually set up your own schedule. And if you need to, you can always rearrange scheduled times. Product reviews. There are companies that want to get your feedback. They want to learn more about how people view their product. And you get paid for offering that information. Promotional work. And once again, this actually can vary quite a bit. Some promotional talent, it might be standing on a street corner handing things out, or it could be you are representing a company at a convention and you are at a booth and you're giving talks, you're explaining information to people. It could really— it varies from job to job, but sometimes you'll actually be using your acting skills. Reader for online auditions. So this is a company and you can get paid for being a reader for other actors. And I've always found that, you know, doing things in the industry can always be helpful to you And even when I teach, and I do lots of workshops, I do lots of private online mentoring sessions, and as I'm teaching, I'm learning. So this might be a really, really interesting gig for you. Role-playing. This is something most people are clueless about, but it is a— it's a pretty amazing job. I know a lot of people who do this kind of work. So Role-playing actors, they get hired sometimes by law schools, and they want to give their students an opportunity to practice presenting in a courtroom. They will hire people to be part of the jury. Maybe you are on the witness stand. They give you a lot of information about the case. You react to it. Also, there are government agencies that hire role-playing actors. It could be the TSA, and maybe you are being hired as someone who's trying to, I don't know, smuggle something onto a plane. And they have to practice learning how to deal with this kind of situation. It could be Homeland Security, it could be the CIA, it could be a lot of different government agencies as well. And so you might want to check that out. It can really be a pretty cool experience. And sometimes private attorneys will also want to hire role-playing actors once again to test out a trial that's coming up. Let's see. Sell your services. Hey, maybe there's something that you do really well and you can sell your services. Maybe you've got an announcer's voice, you know, and you can do greetings for people. You can Create outgoing messages for people. Maybe, I don't know, you are a— you're a potter. Maybe you can make items that you sell. Maybe you can teach people how to do things. Anyhow, check it out if you have any special skills that are sellable. Here is something. It's called standardized patient work. This also is something I know some people who do this on a full-time basis. It would be hard to make a living doing it full-time, quite honestly, but you know, you can definitely make some good money doing it. Standardized patients are actors who get hired by teaching hospitals and some medical schools. So you can check it out in your area and see if there are Any medical schools in your area that hire standardized patients. So what happens is you will be told about a disease that you have, and you're gonna get a tremendous amount of information. You don't have to memorize this, but you have to be very, very familiar with it. And you have to essentially do a lot of improv. You will be examined either by a medical student or maybe a resident at a teaching hospital. And they will come in, they're going— it's nothing invasive. They're gonna ask you lots of questions. And so you have to respond depending on the type of disease that you have. And that's why you have to be incredibly familiar. It will take some time learning this, but it could be a great experience. And, you know, you will respond maybe if you're asked about, you know, the medications you're taking and side effects and what kind of problems you are having with this issue, how it's affecting your life. Have you tried other things? How long have you had it? When did you first notice it? Lots of things like that. And then at the end, it is the standardized patient, the actor, who actually writes up a statement critiquing the doctor or the student and essentially saying, the student didn't ask important questions, didn't really listen to my responses. It's a great way of helping to train other medical professionals in this world, and you get paid for it. So it's a pretty cool job. A substitute teacher. I know a number of people who work as a substitute teacher, and your hours and days are flexible, and you can set it up for days that you know you don't have any auditions or any jobs. There's also an interesting website, Survival Jobs. And, you know, just, you know, take a look at the website and see if there are any jobs in there that, you know, are right for you. Transcription services. So this is a company that hires people to transcribe information. So if you're a good typer and not only a good typer, but you have to be able to hear things and be able to type them out. It's a job you can do completely on your own, on your own schedule, which can be really wonderful. Tutoring. You know, if there's something that you are really great at, whether, you know, you're a musician, whether you are an athlete, whether you do martial arts, you know, you speak a foreign language, whatever it is, maybe that could be a really good side hustle job for you. You can also get paid for writing blogs and articles. And here's an interesting website you can check out. And once again, as you will notice, I didn't place any information in here about being an Uber driver or being a Lyft driver or being a waiter or bartender. I wanted to use as many things as possible where you could actually use your skills and also things that just aren't as common and things you might not have thought about. Now, this one has nothing to do with your skills, but valet parking. You know, once again, maybe you can set up your schedule. You're working in the evening and, you know, if for some reason— and it would be great if you booked a job and it's going to run into the evening, maybe you can swap out with somebody. Being a virtual assistant, you know, maybe that's also something that you can do. It's not a 9-to-5 kind of job. You can do things a lot of times on your own, or at least you set it up that way so that way you can get work done whenever you, you have the time to do it. And the very last thing that I thought of was maybe if you're a web designer or a marketer, maybe you can create websites for other actors, or you can help market people and, you know, get their names out there more into the world. So if that is a skill that you have, I mean, that's something that you use on the Fiverr website as well. But those are 23 really helpful side hustle jobs that will allow you to continue pursuing acting and modeling and having some income on the side. Once again, if you haven't subscribed yet, please don't forget to click the little subscribe button, the Uh, bell notification button. And if you like and you found this information helpful, click the thumbs up. And the very, very last thing, please, um, if there is a side hustle job that you have or have had that you found helpful, please share it below. The, the reason why I have this, um, uh, this channel is to build a large family of people helping each other. That, that's the reason for doing this. Getting started, it's really hard. I spent many years just doing things by trial and error, and I wish I had a mentor and, and had a family of people who I could reach out to and ask questions to. So please share your information if there are any side hustle jobs that you found helpful. And also share this link and share this video with as many people as possible throughout your social media platforms, um, as well as just sending it out through, uh, email if that's what you do. Anyhow, I'm Aaron Marcus. I hope you found this really helpful, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.