New Casting Director Scam Is Fooling Actors — Here's How to Avoid It

This is a new and dangerous acting scam that I recently read about in The Hollywood Reporter. It's— I have to say, it's probably the most creative and cruel scams I've ever read about in my 40-plus years of working in the industry. I've watched and followed acting scams up close, and I know The damage they can do. But this one is different. Not only will people potentially lose thousands of dollars, it's so demoralizing that people actually quit following their dreams of being a working actor. I'm going to break down exactly how the scam operates so you will recognize it And make sure it never happens to you. Okay, let's get started. Hey, I'm Aaron Marcus, and I am— I'm very excited about sharing this with you because this scam is hurting so many people. Let me first tell you how they operate it, and then I will tell you later on how to Figure it out and how to avoid it. So the first thing is you're going to get an email from a famous casting director. As a matter of fact, one of the names that popped up was Avi Kaufman, very, very famous casting director, and she's cast so many amazing projects. Now, of course, it's not really her, but it's coming— supposedly coming from her. They're going to say, oh, I saw some photos, social media posts, you have a really interesting look. There's a new project that we're working on. Love to talk with you about that. And they're going to ask maybe for headshot and resume. Maybe if you have a reel, they might ask for a monologue. You send all this and you're feeling really excited about it, and then they're going to get back to you with a lot of positive information. Really liked your monologue. You're very talented. And then it could go a couple of different ways. They might say, look, you're really good. There are a couple things that I think you need to work on. We can help you with that, and there is a fee for that. Or they might say, hey, we really liked it a lot. And then you might hear back and they're going to tell you about a role on a project, I'll say like a TV show that they're actually casting, or a movie they're actually casting, that they want to hire you for. So you're going crazy. Oh my goodness, this is amazing! And they're going to say, look, everything is fine. You're going to have to sign an NDA, which is a non-disclosure agreement. Which, you know, it's pretty typical. They just don't want you talking about a project before it's out there. And they're going to say, look, everything is going to happen. Here are the dates of the shoot. Are you available? Yes. But here's the one thing that you have to do before you can work on the project. Because it's a union project, you have to be a member of SAG-AFTRA. And they're going to send you a form that you can fill out so you can join the union. And they might even give you the name of someone from the union who deals with new people who want to become members. And the cost is— it's actually a little depending on where you live. But they might be asking for about $3,000, which, I mean, that's if you're living in LA or New York. Yeah, it's actually— I think it's a little bit more than that now, but it's like just a little bit more. And you can pay them either through PayPal or Cash App, however you want to do it. And then you're going to be able to work on this show. And here's the role. They might even set up a time Where you're going to have a Zoom session with the creatives of the project, and then you're going to find out it's not true. It's not true. They're lying to you. They're making this stuff up. You're out a lot of money, and you just feel so deflated. You feel horrible. You feel used. You feel like— What? am I doing in this industry? And it's just a horrible, horrible thing. Now, a couple things. One is, towards the end, I've got another video that I want to share with you. It's also about scams. I expose an international modeling scam that you need to know about. So you'll see the video dropdown for you to click on. And the other thing is, by the way, if you have ever experienced any kind of scam, please share it here with us so we can learn from you. You don't have to use names. Don't— let's not get into any legal stuff, but just tell us how it worked, what took place. But here is— here's the part of how to recognize this as a scam and make sure that you avoid it. So number one, yeah, it is possible. For a casting director to reach out to somebody throughout social— through social media. Most of the time, I can tell you they're going to go through an agent. But hey, it does happen sometimes. But here's the deal. First of all, what you can do immediately is, if it's from a casting director, check out the email address. get in touch. Maybe go do some research because the email address, it's not the right one. It might look like the right one, but it's not the right one. Actually get in touch with the casting director. Maybe you can go to the Casting Society of America, just do an online search, and maybe you can get information that way. Do a Google search and actually contact their office. And ask them, hey, are you casting this? Did you actually send me information offering me a role or asking me to audition for something? And then you're going to find out they're going to say, no, we didn't do that. The other thing to keep in mind as far as like joining the union, you can't just pay a fee and be in the union. You've got to have already been cast in a principal role. And the thing is, you can contact the union office. The union office— and I'll tell you what, I'm going to leave a couple things for you. I'm going to leave the link for the union office in the description. I also will leave the link for The Hollywood Reporter article so you can read the entire thing if you would like. But there are, there are ways that you can— if you are cast in a union project, yes, there are ways that you can sign up to be in the union. But the contracts have to be signed, and nobody is going to ask you to make a payment to the union through PayPal or Cash App. You do it through their website, most likely. I guess you could send a check in, but I don't think anybody does that anymore. But contact the union office and speak to somebody. there because they, you know, they could give you a fake email, like I was saying before, to somebody at the union. Go to the Actors SAG-AFTRA.org. But once again, I'll leave that for you. And, you know, most importantly, if something sounds too good to be true, listen to yourself. If your stomach is grumbling and something doesn't feel right, I'm telling you, trust your instincts here because these people know how to push your buttons. They know what to say to you. Honestly, how these people sleep at night, I don't know, because they are hurting so many people. The very last thing I was just going to say, look, if you haven't done this yet, please just subscribe to this channel. The information's going to be really helpful to you. Share it with fellow actors. Click the bell so you always know when I upload a new video. But most importantly, please share any experiences that you might have had with anything like this or another kind of scam, because this is, this is happening more and more. One other thing I forgot to mention, sometimes they will have the casting director call you, and through AI, they're able to impersonate the casting director's voice. Imitate it, and you think that you're actually speaking to the casting director. It just— it bothers me so much, and it makes me so angry how these people— they're just heartless. They are heartless, and they hurt so many people. Anyhow, this is a hard one for me to do, but it's really important. And please share this with other actors so we can— it's hard enough being an actor and then not having to deal with this craziness. Anyhow, I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.