How do you format an acting resume?

Casting directors look at your headshot first and your resume second, usually for a few seconds. In that time they want to know three things: what level you work at, where you trained, and whether you can do anything unusual the role needs. A standard layout lets them find all three without hunting, which is why acting resumes look so alike. The format is a convention, and following it is a quiet signal that you know the business.

What goes on an acting resume, in order

1. Your name. Large, at the top, the same name you use professionally everywhere else.
2. Union status. SAG-AFTRA, AEA (Actors' Equity), SAG-AFTRA Eligible, or nothing at all if you are non-union. Here is how to join SAG-AFTRA.
3. Contact. Your agent or manager's logo and details if you have representation; otherwise a professional email and phone number. No home address.
4. Stats (optional). Height, hair color and eye color. Weight is increasingly left off. Never your age.
5. Credits. In sections by medium, usually Film, Television and Theater, in whichever order fits the work you want. Commercials get one line: "List available upon request."
6. Training. Degrees, conservatories, ongoing classes and the teachers who ran them.
7. Special skills. One short paragraph or line of things you can genuinely do.

Sample acting resume

Here is a complete example. Every name and credit on it is invented.

On paper this is a single page with the name centered at the top, credits in three neat columns and generous white space. A plain, readable font in one size for the body and a larger one for your name is all the design it needs.

How to list your credits

The three columns are always project, role, and who made it, but what goes in the middle column changes by medium.

Film. Title, then the size of the role (Lead, Supporting, or for very small parts, Featured), then the production company or director. Mark short films and student films as such; casting will know anyway, and labeling them looks confident.

Television. Title, then the role category: Series Regular, Recurring, Guest Star or Co-Star. That middle column is how casting reads your level, so use the category the job was booked as. Here is what co-star and guest star mean.

Theater. Title, then the character's name, then the theater or company (and director, if the name will mean something to the reader). For new plays, "(new play)" or "(world premiere)" after the title helps.

List your best credits first in each section, which is usually but not always your most recent. If you trained at a school whose productions are a real credential, school credits can sit in the theater section with the school named in the third column.

Training and special skills

Training matters most when credits are thin, and it never stops mattering to casting directors who care about craft. List the program or studio and the teacher's name, because in many cities the teacher is the credential. Ongoing classes show you are still working.

Special skills is the section actors most often get wrong. List only what you could do on camera tomorrow, well. "Juggling" means you can juggle three balls for a full take. "Fluent French" means you could improvise a scene in French. Dialects you list should be ones you could hold through a callback. If a skill is on the page, expect someone to ask for it in the room, sometimes on the spot.

How to write an acting resume with no experience

Everyone starts somewhere, and casting knows what a first resume looks like. Make it honest and make it tidy.

Lead with training. If you have little else, move Training up to sit right under your contact details. A year of serious classes says more than a padded credit list.

Use real but small credits. Student films, class showcases, community and school theater, staged readings, web series made by friends. All of it counts if you actually did it. Mark them clearly.

Leave out background work and anything invented. Most casting directors read background credits as padding. Invented credits are worse: the industry is small, and people check.

Fill the gap with footage. If the page looks thin, a strong self-taped scene linked from your casting profile does the work the credits cannot yet; see how long an acting reel should be.

Size, format and attaching it to your headshot

In the US the printed resume is trimmed to 8x10 inches, the same size as the headshot, and fixed to the back: stapled at the corners, glued, or printed straight onto the back of the photo. A resume hanging off the edges of the picture is a small thing that casting notices.

Most submissions are now digital. Keep a PDF version, and keep your profile on each casting site current, since that is often the version casting actually sees. Update every time you book something; a resume is never finished. For the photo on the other side, here is what makes a good acting headshot.

Acting resumes in the UK, Canada and Australia

UK. Actors usually say CV, and the main one casting sees is your Spotlight profile, which has its own fixed layout for credits, training and skills. Follow Spotlight's format and use the same information on any printed CV.

Canada. Layout follows US conventions. Union status reads ACTRA, ACTRA Apprentice, UBCP/ACTRA or non-union, and many actors keep a matching profile on Casting Workbook.

Australia. Similar again, with MEAA Equity membership listed where relevant and profiles commonly kept on Showcast and other casting platforms.

Everywhere, the rules that matter most are the same: one page, honest, current, and easy to read in five seconds. Agents will ask for it as part of your submission; here is how to get an acting agent.

More questions