Aaron Marcus, a veteran actor and commercial model, shares how he booked two TV commercials by repeatedly checking email and following up with a casting director about a political spot. Talent alone won't get you work in entertainment; you need to hustle, stay on top of communications, and act fast.
Hi, I'm Aaron Marcus, and I've been a full-time actor and a commercial model for over 30 years. Perhaps you saw my recurring role on House of Cards. Worked on Gotham, Halt and Catch Fire, Rectify, West Wing many years ago. I've done tons of commercials, print ads, voiceover work, and so far I've booked over 1,200 jobs. If you're watching this on YouTube, welcome to my channel. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button and the notification button so that way you can always get the new information that I'm posting here. What I want to talk with you about today is being proactive. And the fact of the matter is, it's not a matter of who is the best actor in the world who gets the majority of the work. Certainly, you've got to be really good, but it takes a lot more than talent to have success. And I just want to give you a really quick example of what I did that just helped get me booked on 2 TV commercials. So I was in North Carolina recently doing a workshop. I traveled over 1,000 miles from Friday through Saturday night, driving down, coming back, doing a workshop. Early Sunday morning, I just went through emails quickly just to see if there was anything urgent. Saw that there was an audition for a TV spot. Political TV spot. Sent in information, didn't hear anything back. And then I knew the auditions were on Monday, so I emailed the casting director again Monday morning and didn't hear anything. And honestly, I was doing work around the house and I thought, well, let me just go check my emails again later in the morning. So around 11:30 or 12 o'clock, checked my emails. Got an email from the casting director and said, look, we're seeing people until 3 o'clock. If you'd like to come in, sure, come on in. So got myself prepared, went to the casting, and didn't hear anything. And I knew they were shooting the next day. And later that evening, I was having dinner. My office phone rings. It was junk phone call, people just trying to sell me stuff. Went back downstairs having dinner, phone rings again. I'm thinking, Oh boy, I should check it just in case. As it turns out, it was the casting director who contacted me and said, hey, you booked it. And they were shooting the next day. Sent over the commercial copy. And as it turns out, I wound up booking 2 TV commercials for this. So the windup is, look, if I wasn't proactive, if I wasn't checking emails, if I didn't submit, contact the casting director, director A second time, never would have found out about it, never would have had the opportunity to audition. And so that just goes back to what I was originally saying. Yeah, you've got to have talent, you've got to have abilities, you want to learn from industry professionals and how to really be good at your craft, but it's more than that. And you don't want to just sit around waiting for emails to come in or waiting for the phone to ring. You've got to be proactive. Absolutely. And, and really get out there and hustle. That's how you get the work. So anyhow, I just wanted to share that with you. Please feel free to leave any comments below as to what maybe you've done that has helped you get more work. I'd love to have you share that. If you are watching this on Facebook, you know, leave your comment below there as well. Or if you're on my website, howtoactandmodel.com, you can leave a comment there as well. I'm Aaron Marcus. I really love sharing this information with you, and I look forward to hearing back from you again soon. And don't forget to subscribe if you're watching this on my YouTube channel and hit the notification button so you can always get updated information.
