Acting for a Living: How to Act Outside Hollwood by Roy McCrerey

I bought this book for my sister-in-law for Xmas. She's working as an actor in Portland, Oregon. Recently, she's done two movies and a commercial.

I read half the book before I wrapped it up for her, and it was interesting. It argues that you can earn a pretty good living as an actor if you have to good sense to stay out of New York and Hollywood.

Every major city has production companies---they all produce commercials, industrial films, have local theater, there's local movie production and now states give tax breaks luring Hollywood productions to their cities. They all need actors, and there's not a glut of them like there is in Hollywood.

The author McCrerey said he had a much easier time landing roles in Atlanta than he did in New York, the gigs actually paid about the same and Atlanta had a lower cost of living.

He mentions one case---who knows if this is true, but there was an actress in some remote area in the South. There was a single production company in the area. But she was the only actor who lived around there so she starred in every one of their productions and earned a nice living.

In Hollywood, the younger you are, the greater your chances to succeed. Outside Hollywood, people often take up acting when they're older. There's some old guy here, a former realtor, who I keep seeing in commercials.

I don't know much about acting. I know that acting schools are often very bad. There was a bit of acting advice he gave that I found interesting---the author said to read a lot, preferably aloud. I suppose it lets you practice sounding natural while uttering other people's words. Other than that, he seemed to think you can get along fine without training. Just act natural.

I've been telling people to head North instead of South. Go to Canada, not Hollywood. I don't know if this is actually good advice---I don't know what the movie and TV industries are like up there now. It's not that easy to immigrate to Canada. But no one listens to me anyway so I feel I have total freedom in giving advice.

It seems like Hollywood or New York offer only massive success or utter failure. The odds against you in either place seem almost insurmountable. I've never understood musicians or comedians who think they have to go there. Every city has a music scene.

Robert Altman started as a director making industrial films in Kansas City, Missouri, his home town. A local businessman hired him to direct a feature called The Delinquents which was released by United Artists.