Acting Resume Templates

Your actor resume is essential for highlighting your top skills and your previous experiences in film, theater, or television.

Whether you’re a seasoned actor or actress or just starting out in the business, these three tips will help you put together an excellent acting resume and capture a casting director’s attention.

1. List your special skills prominently on your resume

Emphasizing your special skills is a great way to stand out and show casting directors what makes you unique. If you have many hard and soft skills, list them in your resume skills section.

Actors and actresses learn hard skills from training, schooling, and practical experience.

For instance, singing and dancing are considered hard skills. Language skills and the ability to speak in other accents are also special skills for actors — proving you’re versatile and can perform in different scenarios.

Here are other hard skills for your resume:

• Ability to play specific sports
• Acrobatic abilities
• Administrative skills
• Combat training
• Gun handling
• Improv experience
• Making props and crafts
• Musical instruments
• Operating a vehicle
• Physical fitness
• Social media skills
• Stage fighting
• Stage management
• Stand up comedy experience
• Valid driver’s license
• Voiceover acting

In our acting resume template below, our applicant mentions that they can sing baritone, speak in several accents, and converse in French and Spanish:

If you’re a beginner and don’t have many special skills yet, try listing soft skills that are relevant to the part you’re auditioning for.

Your soft skills show how you relate to people in a professional setting. Casting directors seek actors or actresses who follow directions easily and work well with others, so list your teamwork skills and your ability to take direction.

Here are some other soft skills for your acting resume:

• Ability to learn and memorize lines
• Communication skills
• Confidence with public speaking
• Flexibility (in terms of working hours)
• Interpersonal skills
• Leadership skills
• Management skills
• Reliability
• Organizational skills
• Patience
• People skills
• Time management skills
• Voice projection
• Working under pressure

2. Include the correct information on your acting resume

Casting directors only spend a few seconds looking at resumes, so make sure your acting resume contains the exact information they’re looking for.

Your acting resume should include your:

• Contact details: E.g., name, affiliated union, phone number, and email address — include your online website or portfolio if possible so directors can learn more about you and see that you’re a professional.
• Physical attributes (also known as a bio): E.g., hair color, eye color, weight, and clothing size
• Agent’s contact information: Write “Represented by” followed by your agent’s name, agency, phone number, and email so directors can contact them directly.
• Resume objective: An acting resume objective is a 2–4 sentence summary that summarizes your top special skills, awards and accolades, and professional experience.

This is a template you can use when writing your acting resume objective:

• Acting credits: Describe your previous work experience as a performer. An acting resume typically lists experience out in a three-part format: title, role, and director or studio.
• Education and training: List any performance schools, master classes, seminars or workshops that you’ve joined, including the name of the institutes and the year(s) you attended them.

• Special skills: Mention the best skills for your resume by using columns to make them straightforward and easy to read.
• Headshot: You can attach your headshot to the back of a printed resume (back-to-back) using staples or glue, or add a resume picture to the front of the page if you’re sending it by email.
• References (optional): List 1–3 references of people who you’ve worked with before or know your work ethic.
• Awards and accolades (optional): Including a section for these accomplishments on your resume for acting shows that you’re talented and hardworking.

3. Use appropriate resume formatting

A well-formatted acting resume lets casting directors see your work experience and special skills clearly.

Here are three resume formatting tips for your actor’s resume you can boost your chances of getting a callback:

1. Apply the reverse-chronological format. The reverse-chronological format is what casting directors are used to seeing because it logically places your most recent education and work credits before your older experiences.

So, list your most recent acting credits first on your acting resume so casting directors can follow your experience easily.

2. Use a professional resume font and size. Your acting resume should look clean and easy to read, so use an appropriate resume font like Times New Roman, Georgia, or Arial.

Additionally, keep your font size between 10–12 so casting directors won’t strain their eyes trying to read your resume.

3. Save your acting resume as a PDF. Your resume page’s size should be 8”×10” which is the standard for most acting resumes.

To ensure your resume formatting stays the same no matter who is printing off your acting resume, submit your resume as a PDF.