Actors Access: what it costs, how to submit, and whether it's legit

Actors Access is the free actor site run by Breakdown Services, where you build a casting profile and submit yourself to roles that casting directors post for actors. Joining and submitting with your name and résumé cost nothing; Actors Access PLUS, at $68 a year or $9.99 a month, lets you submit with a chosen headshot, reels, a size card and a note (Actors Access Help Center).

It is one half of a two-sided system. Agents and managers use Breakdown Express; actors use Actors Access. When a project needs actors, the casting director or filmmaker decides where its breakdown goes: some are posted to Actors Access, others only to representatives on Breakdown Express, and actors can see only the ones posted to Actors Access (Breakdown Services). Breakdown Services says it posts over 97% of all scripted content that needs actors in North America; that is the company's own figure.

Your Actors Access profile also matters if you get an agent: a representative can submit you on Breakdown Express only if you have an Actors Access account, and one profile is shared with every representative you work with (Breakdown Services). So even an actor who never self-submits needs one.

Yes. Actors Access is the actor portal of Breakdown Services, Ltd., the company behind Breakdown Express, which describes itself as trusted by every major studio, network and streaming service in North America (Breakdown Services). It also hosts Eco Cast, the self-tape and remote-audition system casting offices use to send invitations (Breakdown Services).

Not every listing is a paid professional job: its notification settings let you exclude non-union, reality TV, student film, real people, background and non-paying projects, so those are posted too (Actors Access Help Center). Read each breakdown's pay, union status and dates before you submit.

Protect yourself the same way you would on any job board:

• Casting contacts you through CMail, the site's internal messaging, and audition schedules and Eco Cast invitations appear under the AUDITIONS tab (Actors Access Help Center). Be wary of an "audition" that only reaches you by text or a personal email and is nowhere in your account.
• Your private details stay private. Casting never sees your address or email, and only approved casting directors see your phone number (Actors Access Help Center).
• Do not pay to be cast. The FTC's rule of thumb is that honest employers never ask you to pay to get a job, and no honest employer sends you a check to deposit and asks you to send part of it on (FTC). Report scams at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. Actors Access's own fees (PLUS, extra photos, media, Talent Link) are platform charges, not a price for a role.

The free profile includes two headshots, one SlateShot, your résumé, size card and special skills, role match alerts and access to Eco Cast invitations and sides (Breakdown Services). Everything else is priced per item or by the PLUS plan:

• Starter submissions: free. On the free plan you click "Submit for Free" and casting gets your name and résumé (Actors Access Help Center). Older articles quote $2 per submission (Terry Schreiber Studio); the current help center says submissions no longer go through the cart and go straight to casting (Actors Access Help Center).
• PLUS: $68 a year or $9.99 a month. It lets you respond to every Actors Access role with your full profile and media you have already bought. It does not discount photos or media uploads. Website purchases renew automatically, and PLUS purchases are nonrefundable (Actors Access Help Center).
• SAG-AFTRA discount: 20% off the annual plan, $54.40. Add your SAG-AFTRA ID to your profile first; the discount applies only to annual plans bought on the website, and Financial Core members are not eligible (Actors Access Help Center).
• Photos: first two free, then $10 each. You can swap the two free photos as often as you like; additional photos cannot be swapped for free (Actors Access Help Center).
• Video $22 a minute, audio $11 a minute, charged per started minute with a four-second allowance, so a 1:04 clip costs $22 and a 1:05 clip $44. Media cannot be replaced, only removed and re-uploaded at the same rates; cutting an existing reel into clips is free (Actors Access Help Center).
• Talent Link: price shown at checkout. A paid listing that lets agents and managers view your profile for 14 days; more in the representation section below (Actors Access Help Center).

Twelve months at $9.99 is $119.88, against $68 for the annual plan. Monthly plans bought in the iOS app add an Apple processing fee; annual plans are sold only on the website (Actors Access Help Center).

1. Register. Use "Register for Free". Actors 13 and older sign up themselves; for a child under 13, a parent or legal guardian registers on their behalf and signs a guardian agreement. The activation email can take up to five minutes; check spam if it does not arrive (Actors Access Help Center). For permits and the rest of the parent side, see how to become a child actor.
2. Fill in the three role-matching fields under ABOUT ME > My Profile: age range to play, ethnic appearance and gender to play. All three must be filled in or role notifications will not work (Actors Access Help Center).
3. Choose your two free headshots carefully. They are free to swap, but extra photos cost $10 each. Use current, professional shots that look like you; the actor headshots guide covers what casting wants.
4. Enter your résumé, size card and special skills. Your profile and résumé go with every submission automatically (Actors Access Help Center). If you are starting from nothing, the acting resume guide and the free resume builder show what to list.
5. Record a SlateShot. It is a seven-second clip attached to a headshot that shows your personality and voice. Film in landscape, centered, and name the file with a lowercase .mp4 extension. The first upload is free and cannot be replaced, and it is lost if you remove its photo (Actors Access Help Center).
6. Turn on role match emails under My Account > Role Matching & Notifications, pick one or two regions (Los Angeles, if that is where you can work), and exclude the project types you will not do (Actors Access Help Center).
7. Create your custom link. Under Share My Profile you can set a public URL beginning resumes.actorsaccess.com with your name in it. It shows your photos, media, résumé, physical characteristics and representation, but no contact details (Actors Access Help Center).

1. Open the BREAKDOWNS menu and choose your region.
2. Under Filters, pick "Breakdowns Fit For Me" to match roles to your age range, ethnicity and gender to play, and filter by union status if you want. Click Search.
3. Open a project. Roles that fit your profile are highlighted in yellow.
4. Click the role name. On Starter, choose "Submit for Free". On PLUS, pick the photo for this role, the media to attach, whether to include your size card and, if casting allows notes, a note.
5. Click Submit. The role name turns gray, and the submission is listed on your Submissions tab.

Those steps are from the Actors Access Help Center, which adds one rule worth remembering: a submission cannot be adjusted or retracted once sent. Before you click, check that you really fit the role as written and can make the dates. For how breakdowns are written and where else LA roles are posted, see casting calls in Los Angeles.

Pick the photo that matches the role, and if notes are allowed, keep them to one line casting can use, such as a relevant skill.

The help center spells out the casting director's view of a submission (Actors Access Help Center):

• The submission list: your name and the headshot chosen for that submission. Casting picks the sort order: by submission time, last name, profile completeness or random.
• Résumé: your credits as formatted in your profile, with your or your agency's contact information.
• Photos: for a self-submission, every photo on your profile; for a submission by your rep, the photos they uploaded for you.
• Media: only the clips attached to that submission.
• SlateShot: your seven-second slate, if the chosen headshot has one.
• Profile, size card and notes: contact details, physical attributes, union status and special skills; the size card only if it was included; your note.
• History: your earlier auditions for that casting director.

So remove old photos, since self-submissions show all of them, and finish your profile: casting directors who sort by completeness see half-finished ones lower down.

If you self-submitted, audition invitations arrive in CMail; if a representative submitted you, the invitation goes to them and is forwarded to your account. Click the envelope icon to read CMail, and tick "Notify me by e-mail of new CMail messages in my account" under My Account so you do not miss a short deadline (Actors Access Help Center).

Self-tape requests arrive as Eco Cast invitations. To answer one (Actors Access Help Center):

1. Open the invitation and click Confirm Audition (or Decline). Confirming may be what unlocks the sides, and Upload Media stays unavailable until you confirm.
2. Record to casting's instructions and save the files on the device you use for the website.
3. Upload each file and wait for it to finish encoding before adding the next; rename, reorder and add notes if the option appears.
4. Click Submit Audition, check the Review Order page, then Place Order. You do not need PLUS to get past that page. Once submitted, the invite locks.

Mind the clock: deadlines show in your device's time zone, and a deadline of 12:00 AM February 02 means you must submit by 11:59 PM February 01. A missed deadline makes the invite inactive (Actors Access Help Center). For uploads, use .mp4 with a lowercase extension, only one period in the file name and no special characters, upload the slate and each take as separate files unless casting says otherwise, and on a recent iPhone set Camera > Formats to "Most Compatible" (Actors Access Help Center).

Casting can also post an Eco Cast Open Call link: you log in (the account must use your own email, not your rep's), click Respond to Open Call Request, and then tape it like a normal invitation (Actors Access Help Center). Eco Cast Live is the remote version of an in-person audition (Breakdown Services). For framing, reader and slate, see the self-tape auditions guide; for the next round, what a callback is.

You do not add an agent yourself. The representative sends a "New Client" invitation from noreply@actorsaccess.com with a subject ending "has invited you to join their roster"; the link expires after three days. When you accept, your profile is linked to the client profile they made: your profile and résumé details win, media is shared both ways, and photos stay separate but can be copied (Actors Access Help Center).

Talent Link is a paid add-on for actors looking for representation. You pick regions, a photo and media, pay at checkout, and agents and managers can view your photos, résumé and media for 14 days and contact you by CMail. It does not auto-renew, is non-refundable, and Actors Access says it is "not a guarantee of representation" (Actors Access Help Center). The guide to getting an acting agent covers what agents look for and how to check a license.

Casting offices choose which sites to post on, and each site's free tier gets you something different:

• Actors Access: free profile with two photos and a SlateShot; free Starter submissions with name and résumé; PLUS $68 a year for full-profile submissions (Actors Access Help Center).
• Casting Networks: the free plan includes 2 photos, 1 video and 1 audio file and lets you answer audition media requests, but submitting to its Casting Billboard requires Premium, $29.99 a month or $299.90 a year in the US. Represented actors on the free plan can still be submitted by their agents (Casting Networks Support).
• Casting Frontier: the free Basic plan has 1 headshot and lets you self-submit only to non-paying jobs on its Direct Submit Board. Premium is $15.99 a month or $149.99 a year; Premium Plus is $20.99 a month or $199.99 a year, with a $159.99 annual price for active SAG members (Casting Frontier Support).

For a new actor: open the free Actors Access profile first (any future agent will use it) and free profiles elsewhere so you can receive requests. Upgrade to PLUS once you have a good headshot and footage and submit every week; judge any paid plan by the auditions it produces.

In LA, audition prep classes and on-camera and self-tape classes train what Eco Cast requests ask for; audit a class first, and check the Price Index for what LA classes cost.

When a breakdown asks for a monologue, find one on Offbook. See what a casting director does for who reads your submission, and how to become an actor for where Actors Access fits in your first steps.