What it takes to become an Actor: Career Guide
Updated: Jul 12, 2021
An actor is a person who portrays the hard work of every single person behind the camera on screen. An actor gives life to a character by playing a role in front of the camera.
Who is an Actor?
An Actor is someone whose profession is acting on various platforms such as Tv, cinema, theatre. A character is played by an actor which is decided by the director/Producer. An actor plays a very important in defining the character he/she is playing. Giving life to a character takes a lot of creativity and hard work as sometimes actors tend to live the character lot of times.
How much does an Actor earn?
It totally depends on the section of the entertainment an actor is working as there are different pays for tv actors, movie actors and theatre actors.
A fresher in the field of Tv earns around 50,000-80,000 a month and gradually with experience it becomes ₹ 1 lakh to ₹ 2 lakh per day/per episode.
A fresher in movies earns around ₹ 20,000-₹ 80,000 per day and after their good demand in the market and their talent they can end up earning to ₹ 1 cr -₹ 10 cr per project.
Usually, theatre is for passionate people who love acting so people don't earn much in theatre. The earning is between ₹ 10,000-50,000 per show.
What skills does it take to be an Actor?
Acting is an artistic career, and like many creative jobs, work can come unexpectedly and can vary widely.
For an actor learning the craft of acting is a major skill. An actor should be able to live the emotion of the character he/she is playing.
Actors should be able to express according to the script requirement and sometimes even improvisation can help.
An actor should be impromptu and should be able to adapt to changes quickly.
It is very important for an actor to be in sync with the director as the director also lives the character as much as the actor behind the camera.
The secondary factors are that an actor should probably know how to dance, sing, modulate voice, or should have self-defense skills for action films. Fitness is a must-have for young roles.
What does the job of an Actor entail?
The job of an actor is highly creative and expressive work.
The actor's main goal is to express a character through different behavioral expressions, movements, and activities.
Actors have to use their body, voice, and language to play a character.
Actors have to create a reaction in an audience.
Most actors have to work with other actors under the direction of a director, who coordinates the scene and how the actors interact with one another.
While some actors may do well with improvisational work, most actors work from a script.
A script has lines, which must be memorized, practiced and used on the day of the performance.
Desired Qualifications of an Actor?
As creativity is a major requirement that does not necessarily require any formal training. Many famous actors started their careers without any formal training in acting, but now there are a lot of acting schools which provide short term and long term acting classes. A person can learn acting through taking classes and it even increases chances of getting a role in a movie/serial, and improvise and practice different techniques, emotions, voice modulation, hand movements, etc.
Some Notable Indian Actors
Dilip Kumar
Rajesh Khanna
Dev Anand
Raj Kapoor
Madhubala
Nargis
Smita Patil
Amitabh Bachchan
Naseeruddin Shah
Shabana Azmi
Om Puri
Manoj Bajpayee
Tabu
Irrfan Khan
Nawazuddin Siddiqui
Radhika Apte
Kalki Koechlin
Actors Associations and Unions in India:
www.fwice.in
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