On being signed by a talent agency

In 2007 I was at a music festival, Pointfest, l when I passed by a tent for Images Agency Models & Actors. They were offering candy if you gave them your contact information. I gave them my contact info and then forgot about it.

About a month later I was working a gig in another city when I got a call from Images asking if I would like to come in. I didn’t really have much else going on at the time, so I agreed to. When I showed up at the appointed time they didn’t know who I was but the receptionist shrugged, put my name on the list and let me in.

I took a seat in a room that quickly became standing room only. There were maybe a 100 people of a wide range of ages, races and body types. An Images representative told us about the agency. They mostly worked on local productions but sometimes a client would go on to have a career in Hollywood after starting with them. They cited a client who went on to appear in Superman Returns.

Everyone was given a sheet with several short ads you could choose from to read off. The reps had people come up and read off one of the pieces of ad copy. You weren’t reading off to the whole room, people were doing tryouts in multiple corners of the room. After doing a reading the representative would ask why you wanted to be an actor, ask if you’d be willing to get rid of your piercings and hair dye should you have those, and see if you’d be interested in acting classes. After that you’d be shown the door, with the possibility of future contact left dangling.

I had initially planned to read the ad copy for the Gap, but then I realized everyone was reading ad copy for the Gap. I switched to reading ad copy for KitKat Cheesecake. “KitKat Cheesecake is a combination of KitKat candy and rich Cheesecake--It’s the break you deserve!”

Before my turn to read I noticed the reps sizing me up and I could tell they weren’t that impressed. However I had a natural advantage--I have a voice that’s deep and richer than a KitKat Cheesecake. I nailed that ad reading. They didn’t show me the door, they called over more reps and had me do it again. They asked me to stay.

The room thinned out. The people who were left were no longer a wide representation of society. We were all white. I was probably the oldest one by a decade (I was 26). I was also the only male. The four others that remained were all very pretty teenage girls. We went into another room where we said our ad copy again, this time while being filmed. Images said they were excited to work with us and we would be hearing from them soon.

I was a bit excited at this point as well. I began daydreaming about life as a movie star. I did soon hear back from Images, they thought I had great potential and wanted to get me started right away in acting classes. The cost would be $10,000.

My response to this request was quick and clear: no. They were supposed to get me work but were asking for money? This smelled like a scam. I was offered an installment plan to pay for the classes, my answer was still firmly no.

The lady on the other end of the line sighed. Though she was disappointed, she still did want to work with me. She offered me a position within their amateur division on the condition that I at least use their photographer to get some headshots made. I agreed to this, but you’re not going to see those headshots here, because they’re pretty cringeworthy.

I went to a couple open auditions but shortly after that I took a teaching job in Japan. I actually still get emails from Images Agency to this day inviting me to open auditions. These days the messages have a lot of warnings not to show up early because they are restricting the number of people allowed in their office at any given time. I imagine they’d be pretty surprised if I actually showed up.