The shape of the document
One page, always, trimmed to 8x10 inches so it sits flush against the back of the headshot it is stapled to. Not two pages, not a page and a half, and not a full letter page with an inch hanging off the edge — that last detail is small and it is noticed immediately.
At the top: your name in large type, your union status if you have one, and your contact details. In practice that means your agent's contact details if you are represented, and your own email and phone if you are not. Never a home address.
Under that, your physical stats — height, hair, eyes, and vocal range for musical theatre. Not weight, and not age. Casting works in playable age ranges, and stating a number narrows you for no benefit.
Credits, organised by medium
The central section, and it is grouped by medium rather than by date. Film, then television, then theatre, is the conventional order for screen-focused work; theatre first for a stage career. Within each, list your strongest and most recognisable work first — this is the one resume that is explicitly not chronological.
Each credit is three columns: the production, the role type, and the company or director. What goes in the role column differs by medium, and this is where amateurs are spotted.
- Film and TV: the role's billing, not the character name — Lead, Supporting, Co-Star, Guest Star, Recurring, Featured. Then the production company or director.
- Theatre: the character name, then the theatre and the director. This is the opposite convention to screen and it matters.
- Never list background or extra work. It is understood as a signal that you have nothing else, and casting directors regard listing it as a tell.
- Do not pad with student films you were barely in, or with a role you auditioned for and did not get. Both get found out.
Training and special skills
Training carries real weight, particularly early on. List the institution or teacher, the discipline, and the years — "Meisner technique, two years, with [teacher]" is far more informative than "acting classes". Named teachers and recognised programmes are read closely by people who know the field.
Special skills is the section people treat as a joke and casting genuinely uses. It is searched. Dialects with the specific accents named, instruments with your actual level, sports, stage combat certification, driving licences including manual transmission and motorcycle, languages spoken fluently, dance styles.
The rule is that you must be able to do it on the day, on camera, without warning. Listing a skill you half-have is how you end up on a set being asked to demonstrate it. "Conversational French" is a fine entry; "French" when you did two years at school is not.
The conventions that mark an amateur
A short list, and every one of them is avoidable.
- A resume not trimmed to 8x10 and stapled to the headshot.
- Background or extra work listed as a credit.
- Character names in a film or TV credit instead of the billing level.
- Age, date of birth or weight anywhere on the page.
- A home address.
- Inflated credits — a co-star role described as a lead. The industry is small and this gets checked.
- An objective statement or a summary paragraph. Neither belongs on an acting resume.
Building one
Any plain single-column template gives you the structure — name block, a stats line, then grouped sections with three-column entries — and the whole document is a credits table, so simplicity is the correct choice. No colour, no design, no photo on the resume itself, because the headshot is the photo.
Keep a master version with every credit and cut a submission version per project, exactly as you would for any other kind of application. A resume aimed at a comedy audition should not lead with your Chekhov.
One practical note: because the document is a table of credits rather than prose, most general resume advice on this site does not apply to it. What does carry over is the discipline of not inflating anything, which matters more in a field this small than in any other.
