In this video, Aaron Marcus addresses the common question of whether actors should list background (extra) work on their resumes. He explains that extra work generally does not demonstrate acting ability because casting directors rarely see the performer, and therefore it should be omitted if the actor has any other credits such as theater, film, TV, or student projects. He does, however, recommend listing one or two extra jobs only when the actor has no other experience, as it shows they have been on set and can make a casting director more comfortable inviting them to audition. Aaron stresses the importance of honesty—never misrepresent an extra as a principal role—as misrepresentation looks unprofessional and is easy to verify. He shares a personal anecdote where a spontaneous reaction as an extra led to a close‑up and an upgrade, illustrating that while possible, such outcomes are rare. Finally, Aaron provides three practical ways for actors with little or no credit to gain on‑camera experience: (1) audition for student films by contacting local college film programs, (2) join independent filmmaking groups on Facebook or Meetup to find projects, and (3) create a self‑produced short with a community of collaborators to generate footage for a reel. He ends with a standard call‑to‑action for subscriptions and invites viewers to discuss their own experiences with listing extra work.
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Hey, I'm Aaron Marcus, and as you can see, I'm not shooting in my home office. I am traveling. I'm out of town doing some workshops. I'm asked a lot by people if they should list extra work on their acting resume, and I do have a couple of ideas about that that I will share with you. I also— watch this to the end because I also will give you some, actually 3 ideas for ways of trying to get cast in films. So if you don't have any experience or you've only done extra work, make sure you watch this to the end so you can get those ideas. So when you get hired to do extra work, it doesn't necessarily show that you have any acting skills. The casting directors or agents have no idea whether you can act or not. Look, I've been in scenes where they had, you know, 1,000 people sitting in the seats on a football field, and those people, you can't even really see their faces. They're just taking up space. Or they're watching a boxing match and the arena is just filled with people. You know, there you don't necessarily show any acting skills unless they decide to do close-ups on, on reactions. Having said that, when I used to do extra work, I always treated it like an acting job, and I worked very hard. I did whatever I could to make the scene work better. Now, I realize probably nowhere near the camera, nobody's ever going to see me, but it— I felt a responsibility. I'm getting paid. I want to use my skills even if nobody sees anything. But let me also just tell you, there have been a couple times I've gotten upgraded from doing extra work. One time is an amazing story. I'm in a theater and I'm in the balcony and it's a TV commercial. And one of the principals starts coughing in the middle of the play. Somebody from this healthcare company comes over to take care of him. And my reaction was, hey, would you walk out of this theater? I'm trying to watch a play. You're disturbing me. I had this irritated look on my face. Once again, I'm way up in the balcony. I'm nowhere near the camera. And the crazy thing is, I was doing a voiceover job. It was a couple weeks later, and I'm walking down the hall, and some woman walks over. I had no idea who she was, and she said, oh, congratulations. Oh, thank you. And I said, well, thanks. Congratulations for what? And she said, oh, that TV spot that you did, you got upgraded. Apparently, somehow the camera found me, the director liked my reaction, did a close-up of me reacting to the situation, and I got upgraded. So here's the thing. If you have anything that you can list on your resume, whether it's theater, whether you've done any film or television, independent projects, student projects, whatever it is, do not list any extra work because it doesn't necessarily show you've got skills. Having said that, if you have absolutely nothing else to put on your resume as far as jobs go, you know, certainly if you've had training and stuff, that's going to be there in special skills. I would list 1 or 2 jobs as an extra only because at least that way, if your headshot and resume gets submitted and the casting director thinks, oh, this person has the right look for this particular role, they flip over your headshot, they're looking at your resume, and they say, okay, the person's just getting started, doesn't have any credit. Oh, but you know what? At least I can see the person has been on the set. Because you've done some extra work, that might make the difference between them feeling more comfortable in inviting you to audition for the project. So if you have any experience, don't list extra work. If, if you have absolutely nothing, yeah, I would list one or two. And the other thing too is make sure you do say extra work. Don't, don't, don't try to fool somebody into thinking it was a principal job, you know, as the bartender. you know, in a feature film when you were an extra, because I think it makes you look unprofessional because it's so easy to— so easy for people to find out. So anyhow, just be honest with that. A really quick thing, because I have something else really important to tell you as far as how to try to get work if you haven't gotten any, or if you've only done extra work. Before I do that though, please, if you haven't done this yet, Um, subscribe, click the notification bell so you always know, uh, when I upload a new video. If you like it, give it a thumbs up. That's very helpful. And please share the link with your fellow actors. So I would suggest, uh, if you're trying to get more work because all you've done is extra work or you've had nothing, um, a couple of things you can do. Uh, I would go to, uh, some of the local, uh, Virtually, just go online to some of the local colleges, universities, community colleges, and see who's teaching film classes. Now, not, you know, history of American film, but classes where students actually have to shoot shorts for their class. And send in a headshot and resume and say you're interested in auditioning for student film. That's one way. You can go to Facebook and start doing some searches for independent filmmaking groups in your area. There's also meetup.com, and see if there are any filmmakers in your area, and you can get together with these people. It's a free service. And so, you know, those are just a couple different ways of trying to get experience in front of a camera, adding things to your resume, and also potentially building up an acting reel. Or, hey, look, If you have a small community of people, maybe somebody can write, somebody can direct, somebody can run the camera, somebody can do the lighting, somebody can do the editing. Maybe you can create your own project. Once again, it could be a short and you can take a 20-second snippet out of that and start your reel. So anyhow, I wanted to share all those things with you. If you have any thoughts about, you know, Adding extra work. Have you done that on your resume? Have you not done that on your resume? Please share it here on the channel so that way we can learn from you. Hey, once again, I'm Aaron Marcus, and I can't wait to talk with you again soon. See ya.
