How to Write an Acting CV

• One page. Always. A second page is read by nobody.
• Credits grouped by medium — film, television, theatre, commercial — and newest first within each group.
• Four columns: production, role, director, company. That is the industry convention and deviating from it reads as inexperience.
• Skills must be things you could do tomorrow on set without a rehearsal.
• Never invent a credit. It is the fastest way to lose an agent, and it is checkable in minutes.

What an acting CV is for

It is a factual document that answers three questions in about fifteen seconds: what have you done, who have you done it with, and what can you do. It is not a personal statement, it is not a pitch, and it is not the place for adjectives about yourself.

Casting directors and agents read hundreds of these. The ones that work are scannable. The ones that do not are the ones asking to be read carefully.

The layout

Name at the top, then your vital statistics in one line: playing age range, height, eye colour, hair colour, base location and whether you drive. Your Spotlight PIN goes here too if you have one, along with your agent's contact details once you are represented.

Then credits, grouped by medium, in this conventional order: film, television, theatre, commercials, voice, other. Within each group, newest first.

Then training, then skills. Then nothing else.

• Do not put a photograph on the CV. The headshot is a separate file and duplicating it wastes the page.
• Do not include your home address, your date of birth or your age. Playing age is what matters and the rest is a data-protection problem.
• Do not use a template with coloured blocks, icons or graphics. Plain text in a clean typeface reads as professional.

How to write a credit line

Four columns, every time: production, role, director, company. That convention exists because it answers the only questions a reader has, and a CV that abandons it for prose is immediately harder to scan.

Be specific about the role in a way that is honest. "Lead", "Supporting" and "Featured" are meaningful; naming the character as well is better. What you should not do is inflate — describing a one-line part as a supporting role is the kind of thing that unravels in a conversation with someone who worked on the production.

Include the company or producing house. It tells a reader far more about the scale and the context of the job than the title does, and it is frequently the thing that makes a credit land.

What to do with no credits yet

Be straightforward about it and lead with what you do have. A CV with three honest student and short-film credits reads perfectly well. A CV padded with school productions from ten years ago does not.

If you are a recent graduate, lead with training — the school, the course, the years — and list your drama school productions under theatre, clearly as such. Everybody in the industry knows what a graduating year looks like and nobody is surprised by it.

If you have no training and no credits, the CV is not your problem yet. Getting a small body of credible work is, and that is what makes the CV worth writing.

Training

School, course, duration and years. If you trained on an accredited course, say so plainly. Short courses and workshops are worth listing only where they are substantial or where the teacher is someone a reader would recognise — a weekend workshop does not need a line.

Ongoing training counts and is worth including. An actor who is still in class reads as someone taking the work seriously.

Skills, and the trap in them

The rule is simple and it is broken constantly: list only what you could do tomorrow, on set, without warning and without a rehearsal.

Accents you can hold under pressure, not accents you can approximate at a party. Instruments you currently play. Sports you currently do. Driving — and say whether it is a manual licence, because productions ask. Stage combat, dance, horse riding, swimming, languages spoken fluently.

The trap is that skills are the section casting actually books from. A production looking for an actor who really rides will call you in on the strength of that line, and being found out on the day is a genuinely career-damaging way to spend an afternoon.

Grade your claims honestly where a grading exists — a BASSC stage combat pass, a dance grade, a language level. Specific and modest beats vague and impressive.

The mistakes we see every week

• Two pages, or three. Cut it.
• A paragraph of personal description at the top. Delete it; the credits do that job.
• Credits with no director and no company, which makes them unverifiable and therefore weightless.
• Inflated roles. Easy to check, and it ends the conversation.
• A skills list running to thirty items, most of them aspirational.
• Sent as a Word file, or a photograph of a printed page. Send a PDF, named with your own name.

The CV, Spotlight and the showreel

They are three separate things doing three separate jobs and they should say the same thing. Your Spotlight profile is where most casting actually looks, so the credits there and the credits on your CV must match — discrepancies between them are noticed and they read as carelessness at best.

Keep the CV as the portable version: the thing you attach to an email, hand over at a meeting or send to an agent. Keep Spotlight current as the live version. Update both at the same time, on the same day, whenever a job finishes.

Before you send it

Read it out loud once. Check every director's name is spelled correctly, because getting that wrong on a CV going to that director's colleague is a bad look. Save it as a PDF named with your full name rather than "CV final v3". Then send it with a short, specific email rather than a long one.

Frequently asked

How long should an acting CV be?

One page. Casting directors and agents read a great many of these and a second page is rarely read at all. If it does not fit, the credits are being over-described rather than the career being too large.

What goes on an acting CV with no experience?

Lead with training if you have it, and list student and short-film work honestly under the right heading. Three credible credits read far better than a page padded with school productions. A CV is not the obstacle early on — having a small body of real work is.

Should I put my photo on my acting CV?

No. The headshot is a separate file and a casting director will already have it. Putting it on the CV takes space that credits should be using.

Do I put my age on an acting CV?

No — put a playing age range instead. Your actual age, date of birth and home address should not be on a document you are emailing widely.

What skills should I list on an acting CV?

Only things you could do tomorrow on set with no rehearsal. Accents you can hold, instruments you currently play, sports you currently do, driving including whether it is manual, stage combat with the grade, and languages you genuinely speak.

Should my CV match my Spotlight profile?

Yes, exactly. Most casting looks at Spotlight first, and differences between the two get noticed. Update both on the same day whenever a job finishes.

What file format should I send an acting CV in?

A PDF, named with your full name. Word files reflow on someone else's machine and a photograph of a printed CV cannot be searched or copied from.