Sheila Manning is one of the queens of commercial casting, having done everything from finding a young girl with an iguana, to some of the most prestigious campaigns ever launched. She was once an actress and occasionally casts features as well.
In this office, we’re not prejudiced against people without agents or those not in the guild - as long as they fulfill the SAG requirements for membership... which is that you must have studied for a career as an actor. If you have a great face and have trained as an actor, then you have a chance. I always emphasize training, training, training. Acting is different for stage, it’s different for film, it’s different for TV and it’s different for commercials. But it’s all acting. The old days of commercial overacting are long gone. Now we’re into a reality time, which is great. A strong acting background, with maybe a commercial class that teaches you what’s happening in the commercial world, is what will help get the job. You don’t really learn acting from commercial classes - you learn what the current trends are. And those trends change, so if you study with a good teacher, you’ll learn what exactly the clients are looking for.
They absolutely despise phoniness. The simplest and best thing to learn is how to slate. In life, when you meet somebody brand new, you know in a second whether you want to get to know that person, even if this is an unconscious thought. Just by slating your first name and your surname, I’ll learn more about you than you’ll ever know. When you slate, they make an immediate decision about whether they’re even going to watch your performance. I can’t tell you how often the producer or the director will hit the fast forward button because someone is just not being themselves.
If you want to learn how to slate, the best thing to do is to practice looking in the mirror and saying your name. If I were slating, I would just state my name and go directly into the audition. I wouldn’t slate in character—I think that’s obnoxious. Acting for commercials is different because we’re in the business of twenty-eight second characterizations. We don’t have time for back story or sub-plot. We don’t have time for you to establish who you are – we need to recognize you and your character instantly.
In my office, you can always drop off a picture - we’re always glad to see people. Depending on the mood of the moment, if I’m not busy, I might chat politics with you for five minutes. But you have to be sensitive to the mood of people’s offices. If you come in and all hell is breaking loose—as it is frequently—just say, “Hi, nice to see you again,” drop off some pictures and leave. If it looks like somebody wants to chat with you, then you can stay around and chat.
One thing that really annoys me is when actors waste their time and money sending me gimmicks to get themselves in the door. Gimmicks make me crazy. Years ago, I got a child’s toy TV set with an actor’s face on the screen and a note saying, “I just wanted you to see how I look on television.” The poor guy had spent a fortune doing that, and for what? I care that you can act, not whether or not you can think of clever gimmicks. Those days of mailing yourself to somebody in a big box are over. Can you imagine, some time ago, somebody actually delivered himself to a producer via UPS. We once got a box of fortune cookies from a dog. The dog wanted a commercial and all of the fortunes said, “Hire Duke!” Just don’t do that. Mail only your picture and résumé. Some actors somehow think that commercials are a stepchild, so they don’t bother to send their résumés - as though we’re really only looking for a face. Sometimes we are, but 99 percent of the time, even if I’m looking just for a face, I’m looking for a face that can act.
For starters, I hate composite pictures (a photo with a collage of several poses). I have hated them for years. Composites were for the old days, when we didn’t need people to act. You had a picture of somebody stirring a bowl, then a guy with a kid on his shoulders, sometimes we even got to see a guy both in a work-shirt and a business suit and tie. What does that mean? That we actually can’t figure it out on our own that they can dress differently? I like a nice close up of the face, with living eyes. It’s very important that the photo looks like you today, not twelve years ago when you were thirty pounds lighter! Yesterday I got a picture of a model, his knees were almost covering his face, and I could only see one eye and the tip of the nose. Now, what can I tell about this actor except that he has pretty knees and an eye?
We have a very hard and fast rule in this office—if you crash an interview here, you’ll never walk through our door again. It’s a harsh rule, but I get paid to choose the talent, and actors have no way of knowing what the director has said to me. The actor may see other people that are similar to them in the waiting room and say, “Hey, I’m a blonde woman, I’m going in.” But what if the director wanted a blonde woman who speaks Russian? When the director or the client sees somebody on the tape who is completely wrong, they think, “Sheila doesn’t know what she’s doing.” I’m the one who loses that account, not the actor. That’s why I’m so strict about crashing. It’s very important for actors to know this because it stops them before they make a mistake. It’s my career that I’m protecting. Dropping a picture and résumé and asking for an interview is one thing, but signing your name on the list as if you have an appointment to be seen at the interview is a separate thing. That’s what I call crashing.
I also will not tolerate rudeness. If you are nasty to me or to those who work for me, you’ll certainly be in my bad graces - and it isn’t easy to be in my bad graces. There was an actor I refused to see for ten years because he came in drunk. He thought I was the receptionist and was so viciously insulting that I never forgave him.
I like intelligent actors, I like warmth, I like people who come prepared. I like people in general and I think this office is very actor-oriented. The best thing an actor can do at an audition is to be memorable. If we’re going to see one hundred people, your job is to find a way to read a line that no one else has thought of. If you’re in a group, and everyone is slating, don’t say, “Hi.” Be the first to just state your name. Be different and hopefully better than everyone else. Be yourself no matter what. Don’t make up something interesting to say when I ask you to talk about yourself. Dare to bare your soul. It will actually work. Also, there are two tests you’re put to at an audition: one is with the dialogue and the other is whether someone wants to spend eight hours a day working with you.
I think it’s a bad idea to list your commercials on your résumé. Just add “Commercials upon request” to your theatrical résumé. Don’t let something you already did as a commercial actor five years ago, stand in your way of getting a job today.
I think that actors are the most vulnerable group of people in the business. Actors are required to put themselves on the line every day - that is, if they’re lucky and have a good agent. I always say that an actor’s job is to go to auditions. That’s the job. If you do your job correctly, we reward you by letting you come and play with us on the set and then we give you money. So when people say angrily that an actor worked one day and made fifty thousand dollars, they’re wrong. I mean, really, what about the three hundred auditions they went on and didn’t get the job - before they worked that one day?
Sheila Manning
310.557.9990
332 S Beverly Dr #102, Beverly Hills, CA 90212