How To Create An Acting CV

An actor’s CV, along with a headshot and showreel, is your calling card. We’ve put together an everything you need to know guide to creating an acting CV that will get you noticed!

The CV is there, not only to show off your experience and past work but also your training, physical stats and any other skills you might have.

When you’re first starting out, you won’t have a lot of credits and that’s totally fine. We all started somewhere and you can still have an acting CV that you can be proud to hand off to any casting director or agent. No one expects you to have a lot of work yet, but on the other hand, how you present yourself is very important. This means including relevant information, spell checking, formatting, and ensuring your CV is polished and presents you as a trusted, professional actor – ready for anything the director can throw at you. Things you should include are...

GENERAL OVERVIEW

- Ensure your CV is clean and easy to scan/read.
- Don’t try to add every single role you’ve ever played since you started speech and drama in 1995. Just add the relevant productions you’ve been a part of within the last 5 – 10 years.
- Your CV should be no longer than one side of A4 paper. No one will read page 2, so put all of your most distinguished credits on one page and lose the rest.
- The font size should be standard 12.
- Use a simple font like Times New Roman or Arial.
- Never lie on your CV. It’s a small community, and you don’t want to damage your reputation. Nothing is more irritating for a casting director than to give you a valuable audition slot under the pretense that you can drive a car (as stated in the skills sections of your CV), only to find out that you just took your third driving lesson.
- Do not put extra work on your CV.

CONTACT INFO

If you have an agent who is representing you, you will add their email address and phone number.

If you are representing yourself, include your own email address and phone number. Just make sure that the email address you include is professional. Perhaps keep the [email protected] for friends and family.

We advise that you leave your home address off your CV.

VITALS

Add your height, weight, hair, eye colour, and age-range. Never put your actual age on your CV unless you are under 18. Your age-range should not be any broader than 10 years, for example, if you are 38 your age-range might be 33-43.

If you want to do musical theatre, you should also list your vocal type here. Example, Voice: Tenor
 

CREDITS/EXPERIENCE

This will include any performing experience on film, television or theatre. Student films, short films, music videos, plays, community theatre, etc...

This section will be grouped by Film & Television, and Theatre. For each section, you should list your most recent jobs first.

Film & Television

For this section, you’ll list the name of the show or Film, followed by the characters’ name, Network or Production Company and then the director.

Don’t ever put extra work on your CV. Again, don’t ever put extra work on your CV.
 

Theatre

For the Theatre section, you list the name of the play, followed by the characters’ name, Theatre or Theatre Company and director of the play.
 

TRAINING

Here you will add any performance related training. Acting, singing, dancing, etc… If you took a workshop or short intensive course, include the specifics of what you learned. For example, if you said dance class, be specific as to the style of dancing (Ballet, Tap, Jazz, etc). For acting, specify the type of training (e.g. Scene Study Workshop, Audition Technique Masterclass, Meisner Technique Workshop… etc).

If you went to college you’ll list the name of the college, followed by the course name and the date of completion. E.g. The Irish Academy of Performance, Full-Time Performing Arts Program, 2018.

SPECIAL SKILLS

These skills should be things you can do well, and right away if asked. If you say you are a boxer, you should know how to box. You could also include the level you are at, for example ‘Piano (Intermediate)’. You can also add the languages you speak and highlight whether you have a full, clean driving license.

This section will also include ‘Accents’. It’s a good idea to add a little asterisk beside your own natural dialect. EG. Accents: Irish-Standard*, Belfast, Irish-Northern, Cork, RP, and American-Standard.

We’ve put together two sample CV templates for you to download. Jen Bloggs has been designed for an actor who does not have an agent and is just starting out. Joe Bloggs has been designed for an actor who has an agent, and a little more experience. 

View Sample CV Jen Bloggs
View Sample CV Joe Bloggs

As well as your paper CV, you can create a free profile on CastandHire that acts as your own personal webpage and can be sent out as a link when applying to casters and agents.

Click here to join the community.