Thank You Notes Every Actor Should Send
When's the last time you sent a thank you card to somebody in the industry? We have people who work really hard for us to get us opportunities and we want to make sure we're showing our gratitude. As an acting coach in New York city as well as an actor and I know what it's like to start a career from scratch and I just want to help you make it a little bit easier.
Casting directors, they are the gatekeepers. They are the one that brings us into auditions, and if you're getting auditions, it means that they like you. It means that they are willing to put you in front of their client because they think that you have a chance at booking the role. So that alone is worth a thank you note. But there are four particular times that you should be sending thank you notes or thank you emails. If you have an casting director that's been bringing you in to audition over and over again and you haven't booked yet, it's a perfect time for you to say thank you, just so that they know that you appreciate the fact that they are bringing you in the room and you want to maintain that relationship with them. Keep it really sweet, something like, thank you so much for all of the opportunities you've been giving me lately. Hoping to book something soon. Not often do casting directors take the time out to tell your agent or your manager good news or good feedback from an audition that you've had, but if they do, that's the perfect opportunity to say thank you.
I had a casting director that reached out to my agent and said, "Hey, we didn't book this one." It was after callback, "But we really love just out and I know that we're going to book her something really soon." Now this one is totally obvious, but when you book a job that's just amazing, send a thank you note. You couldn't have done it without that casting director. There are some audition processes that are super long like for reoccurring roles, so if you have an audition and then a callback and then another callback and then a screen test and then a chemistry read, you want to say thank you regardless of what happens in the end. You spent a lot of time with that casting director and you want to keep your spirits high and let them know that you're really grateful for the opportunity.
Agents and managers, these are the people closest to our hearts. You're telling them thank you already all the time, whether it's via email or on the phone, but it doesn't hurt to send them a handwritten thank you note. There are some of us who will hear about an audition for a role and send an email to our agent and manager hoping that we can get an audition for that particular role and they make it happen. When that happens, we want to say thank you. One, thank you for letting me tell you how to do your job because I probably shouldn't have sent that email. Two, thank you for fighting really hard for me to get me in the room. Don't say that though. Say, "Thank you so much for being open to the different types of roles that I've been interested in recently. I really appreciate how hard you fight for me."
Now we already talked about thanking the casting director when you book a big role, but you have to thank your agent. They were the one who got you in the room. So as an acting coach and as someone who has lots of acting friends, I send a lot of people to my agency and so I want to make sure whenever someone that I sent to them books a job, especially a really big job or their first job with the agency, I send them a thank you note. So thank them when you're referees book big. Agents and managers are super busy and so if there's a moment where you need to sit down and have a meeting with them, they have to take a big chunk out of their time to sit down and do that with you. It might be very important. It might be life changing for you, but we still want to make sure we say thank you for putting aside that time and giving us some one-on-one energy.
If you get privy to information from your agent or from the assistant on how hard it was to get you an audition, make sure you take that as a reason to send a thank you. Really specific of surrounding how hard they work for you because it's a privilege to have an agent or a manager who works that hard for you. I've only had this happen once and it was totally my fault. I did something in a previous audition that made them not interested in seeing me, as in not showing up to an audition I was before I knew better, but now I know better. Anyway, when that happened, I sent my agent a big thank you. She let me know how difficult it was for me to get an audition for that job and I wanted her to really know that I appreciated what she was doing and how hard she worked for me.
There have been situations where I have had a booking and two auditions in one day and I had no idea how I was going to do all of it and my agent figured it out and made the times work and I was so grateful. I was still a little stressed, but everything happened the way it was supposed to happen, and for that, a thank you is needed. There are plenty of times where your agents and managers will be signing contracts for you and helping you to get the best contract possible. So that means they might be fighting for boarding or travel or more money for you, whatever it is, when you get that contract signed and everything is sealed and delivered, tell them thank you for all of that hard work because without them, your contract could be a mess.
Now as you know, I'm an acting coach and I've received some thank you notes every once in a while that make my heart pitter-patter and makes me so proud of my students and so happy that I have them. These are two thank you notes that I've received as a coach that if you send is sure to make your coach feel super special. When you book a job, if there's something that you recently booked that you know you got the skills for from your acting coach, send them a thank you email. It makes us so happy to know that you are working.
Another thank you note that I received that I was super grateful to get was around a discovery that they saw outside of class. So we talk a lot about different methods and different ways of thinking in class, and sometimes you get it in class but it's waiting until you get out on your feet and you're doing the application of acting in different arenas that you really get it. So getting a thank you note from a student saying, "Hey, remember when we talked about this? It really solidified for me when we were onset working on this moment and I just had to say thank you."
Let's talk about directors and producers. If you are lucky enough to build a relationship with the director or producer, after you finish the gig, send them a thank you note. It's a super amazing way to keep a good connection with those directors and producers and you will never know when you see them on set again.
Okay, so we just talked a lot about thank you notes and sending them. So let's talk about what they should look like. Below are some super simple thank you notes that are gorgeous and beautiful that anyone would be thankful to receive in the mail. The problem with these though is it doesn't have your face on it. So if you send something like this, you want to make sure that there's a photo of you on the inside. So this is like a business card that I have that I dropped right in to my thank you card so that they know exactly who they're talking about. Now you shouldn't have to send a photo when you're talking to your agent or your manager, but if you're sending it to a casting director, it does not hurt to put your photo in it.
Now if you want a really fancy version of a thank you card, what I love to do is use an app to create my thank you card. I can do it all from my phone without touching a piece of paper, even mail it just with a simple click of a button. If you don't want to spend any money at all, it's totally fine to send a thank you email. Just remember, hard copies are something that people are not really receiving anymore. Not a lot of people do snail mail, so it is appreciated a little bit more, but digital is always a great way to go.
This conversation really came about from our posts on Instagram where we were talking about all of the things that we need to leave in the past year and one of those things were not making thank you cards. We want to be sending them out. I hope this helped you think of some ways that you can be sending thank you to the people around you and the people on your team.