Here Are 5 Powerful Reasons For Declining Acting Jobs

Here are 5 powerful reasons for declining acting jobs, and if you watch this to the end, I've got a great bonus video for you— shocking ages of 6 actors who found big success. Okay, let's get started. Hi, I'm Aaron Marcus, and welcome to the Acting and Modeling Quick Tips channel and the Actor Career Center. Look, I know it's really hard to turn down jobs. It's not something I have done very often in my life. I— out of 1,300 jobs, I'm thinking— or almost 1,300— maybe 6 I've turned down. But there are some very specific reasons, and here's the very, very first one. And this one is a— it's a simple— it's a simple one. Look, if you are booked out or you think you're going to be booked out or you've got something coming up that you just don't want to say no to and then you're offered a job and it's— look, it's completely your call, but that would be a time where you're going to decline the job. The second time where you absolutely want to turn down and decline an acting job Look, sometimes we get these offers that just don't make a whole lot of sense. Look, I've never accepted a job or turned down a job based on money. Now, certainly I'm not going to lose money by taking on a job that is so far away from me and expenses aren't covered. But if that does happen for you, You've got to say no. Well, look, let me take this back. This is your call, and some people might say, well, you know what, I might lose a little bit of money, but this might be a really good job for me, so I'm willing to travel at my own expense. I'm willing to put myself up in a hotel, pay for my meals when I'm not working, and I'll do the job. And that's fine. Look, I've broken even on jobs Just because I knew that they would be helpful to me, and they were. But this is a call for you. And if you're living on the East Coast and this job is in, I don't know, Las Vegas, and you've got to fly out there and put yourself up, it might not be worth it to you. And you have to understand, yes, this is a business, but before you say no immediately, just think about it and see if it might be still worth it. worth your while to do it. But that would be another time to turn down a job. Number 3, this is primarily for commercial modeling jobs, but I guess if you are non-union and it's a TV commercial, this, this would be a good reason to potentially turn it down. I find that— and just to make sure you guys know, for commercial modeling, that has nothing to do with fashion. Commercial models are sometimes really handsome, beautiful people you see in non-fashion magazines or on billboards or posters on sides of buses and things like that. And I've done hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of commercial modeling jobs. Something that I'm finding more so in today's time period than in the past is that the client wants to be able to use this ad in perpetuity. Sometimes they will give you a bonus for that. I find that the bonuses really are not all that much anymore. They used to be much higher. And here's what you have to think about. If it's a product or a company that you could potentially be working for, for a competitor in the future, let me just give you a perfect example. Let's say this is for Some kind of heart medication. It's a pharmaceutical ad, and they want to use your image. They want to use this ad forever. Well, you might want to think about it. Or if it's diabetes, because, you know, maybe there could be another project happening for a competitor for the same disease. And if they own the rights to your image, Then you might not be able to work for any competitor ever. And that's, that's a serious thing to think about because you don't want to cut yourself out of future jobs for this one job, especially if they're not paying you a tremendous amount. Number 4, if you think this job could be bad for your career, Then you want to say no. Like, for instance, look, if you are in a great position and you've been working a lot, but the characters are the same, it's the same type of role every single time. Now, personally, hey, you could hire me as a doctor for the rest of my life. I like to work. But there are a lot of people who get to a point and they say, you know what, I want to do something different. I've been typecast so much all my life, I need a change. I understand. I mean, it's not something I would necessarily do. I'd like to be in that position where I'm working so much where I've got to turn things down. But that might be a time because it might not be good for your career to continue to do the same thing over and over and over and over again. So, and here's just another example. There was a— this was a modeling ad, and I was— would have been portrayed as somebody who did things with kids that, that weren't very good. Let me just put it that way. And, and it was, it was a great ad campaign, and it was about how people have to be very careful, even When you meet a nice guy like me, a nice friendly face. I didn't want to do it because I thought it might take away business for me with working with kids in the future. Hey, look, people get it. I don't do any of this kind of stuff, but if my face is plastered on billboards across the country, yes, some other products or companies might not want to hire me. So That might be a good time to say no. If the job, the company, what you're saying goes against your beliefs, goes against your morals, if there's dialogue that you don't feel comfortable saying, if there is something taking place in the scene that makes you feel uncomfortable, if it's a company you don't respect, you don't like, you feel like they're doing bad things in this world, Then you might want to seriously say no to it. And, and here's, here's the thing. Once again, I know it's hard to say no, but you never ever want to be in a position where you're looking back and regretting something that you did. As important as acting is for us, or modeling, whatever, whatever you are doing right now, Your personal beliefs and your reputation and how you feel about yourself is much more important. And so certainly if it's something that's being offered to you, you can have a conversation with your agent. If it is dialogue, the words you're not comfortable with or the scene, maybe you can talk to your agent and say, hey, is there a chance you can have a body double? Is there any chance they can change some of the words for me because I don't feel comfortable saying these things. And depending on how badly they want you, maybe they will, maybe they won't. And once again, it's hard to say no, but you don't want to regret, regret anything that you've done. If you haven't done this yet, don't forget, subscribe to the channel, click the notification bell so you always know when a new video has been uploaded. If you like it, give it a thumbs up, and please share, share the love with fellow actors. I did promise a bonus video, and you can see it right up here. And shocking ages of 6 actors who've gone on to have tremendous success. Look, there are a lot of— there are a lot of people who will say you're too old to act, you're too old to get started, there's no work for you. Watch this video. And you're going to see that that simply is not true. I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.