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About Heidi Dean:

Heidi Dean is known as the industry’s top social media strategist for actors and the creator of Marketing4actors.com. She’s a social media writer for Backstage Magazine and a frequent speaker at film festivals, SAG-AFTRA, AEA, conferences, podcasts and universities across the country. Her clients include Emmy Award-winners, Broadway stars, series regulars, directors, producers, casting directors, voice actors and audiobook narrators. Heidi turns social media rookies into ROCKSTARS!

How the heck did you get into doing social media with actors? 

The tweetable version is well, I really got my start in social media marketing and I was actually running social for my husband who is a Broadway and television actor and now audiobook narrator.

And a lot of the things we were doing for him and promoting his album and everything, just started taking off. And of course, working actors know working actors, and I started run...

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About Maribeth Fox:

Maribeth Fox has worked with Laura Rosenthal Casting for fifteen years and has had the privilege of working alongside major talents like Todd Haynes, Paolo Sorrentino, Oren Moverman, Joachim Trier, Ed Burns, Mindy Kaling, Anton Corbijn, and Lisa Cholodenko as well as up and coming feature directors, Guy Nattiv, Olivia Newman, & Paul Downs Colaizzo.

Favorite credits include Olive Kitteridge and Mildred Pierce both for HBO, Jay-Z’s music video for Smile, Wonderstruck with Todd Haynes, A Quiet Place, Modern Love for Amazon and Liz Garbus’ narrative feature debut, Lost Girls.

Two of her three films at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival broke sales records, Late Night and Brittany Runs A Marathon.

Most recent credits include Sharper for Apple TV, directed by Benjamin Caron, Bottoms, produced by Elizabeth Banks, Murder Mystery 2 with Happy Madison, and the upcoming A Different Man from Killer Films and A24.

How did you become a casting director?

David Cady’s Commercial Gym

About Jason Figgis:

Jason Figgis is an award-winning IFTA-nominated film and TV director who has had feature work commissioned or acquired by major broadcasters that include Sky One, Sky Arts, Channel Four, Hulu, RTE, Apple+, iTunes, KSM, SVT, Cinedigm, Discovery Channel, Amazon Prime, and Lionsgate Studios. 

This work has been placed in territories that include 150 countries worldwide. 

Figgis’ work includes the IFTA-nominated Discovery Channel documentary THE TWILIGHT HOUR, the Sky Arts documentary A MAVERICK IN LONDON (featuring Alan Rickman, Richard E. Grant, and Joanna Lumley), SIMON MARSDEN’S HAUNTED LIFE IN PICTURES (featuring John Hurt), High Fliers Films / Pinewood Studios release THE GHOST OF WINIFRED MEEKS (starring BIFA winner Lara Belmont) and LOVE? (written and presented by Samantha Beckinsale). 

Figgis directed the official music videos for the QUEEN OF ENGLAND’S PLATINUM JUBILEE CELEBRATIONS IN 2022. 

He also restored the classic Ger...

About Joshua Lastine:

Joshua Lastine, Esq., Entertainment Business and Transactional Attorney is the Founder and Managing Partner at Lastine Entertainment Law. 

A strategic negotiator, fierce advocate for talent, and a practical problem solver, Lastine strengthens his counsel with an ineffable passion for show business, its players, and creators. 

As a former Lionsgate and ViacomCBS attorney, Joshua Lastine launched Lastine Entertainment Law in 2021, formally Lastine Impressions, to protect the artistry and livelihood of actors, production companies, writers, producers, directors, animators, social media influencers, and podcasters. 

In his representations on behalf of entertainment talent clientele, including rights acquisitions, development/production deals, branding/commercial advertising deals, talent deals, and other contracts for new media, social media, and the Internet 3.0, Joshua Lastine has an intrinsic aptitude for structuring deals and closing contracts that are shap...

About Mandy Fisher:

Mandy Fisher is a NYC-based full-time voiceover actor with over 15 years of experience in the industry. She has worked with brands like Crayola, Disney, Peloton, Coke, Walmart, and Kohls to name a few.

Her passion for voiceover and genuine love of helping people inspire her to work with actors of all stages of their career. 

With a theater background, she brings her training to guide copy analysis and character creation. As an industry vet of 15 years, she has witnessed the changes and understands the ebbs and flows of the business. 

Mandy created her own voiceover business from the ground up and has a successful and replicable model to help actors build their own successful businesses.

All of this adds up to a coach who can provide audition and career advice while helping actors become the best they can be!

Tell me about all the different types of voiceover that are out there today.

There's more than one thing that you can do as a voiceover artist. An...

Learn More About The Working Actor Road Map

About Juan Carlos:

Juan Carlos Diaz is an actor born and raised in New York City. He began acting at the age of six in various school plays and musicals while in private school.

While still in high school, he began working at the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre under the direction of Miriam Colon Valle, which led to his first Equity production at the age of 17 at New Media Repertory Theatre, where he immediately became part of the children's theatre company there.  

Juan Carlos holds a BA in theatre from Bard College, where he studied under the tutelage of JoAnne Akalaitis and Liz Smith.  

His work can be seen in BULL, HALSTON, LAW & ORDER, LAW & ORDER SVU, The Last Thing He Wanted (with ANNE HATHAWAY), and many other TV shows and films.

I've always been a good listener so I can figure out the homework later and take notes.

I went for the audition, and then this went on for about two years. I would even get emails that he's pinned ...

Yeah. Shit, we don't have one strike going on. We now got two.

So, what are we going to do about it? Well, I think the first thing I'm just going to do is I'm just going to share with you my feelings about it.

I do think this strike is necessary. AI is terrifying for the actor, and I am so proud and honored to be a part of a union that recognizes that.

Having your image so that a company just can use it, however they want to use it is just unacceptable.

I don't think it's worth it.

So what do we do now?

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The three pillars are the three things that I really think you want to focus on.

Two of them in particular right now.

One, you're acting training. This is not the time to slide.

This is the time to ensure you are still going to the gym.

This is the time to work out your actor body.

I have the Acting Business Bootcamp Strike Challenge that I gave all of my Weekly Accountability Group actors.

It's a monologue workout to keep you going as an actor.

I'm ask...

Okay, now what? We graduated, and there's a fucking writer's strike, and a pending actors strike. Wait, this is not what I showed up for.  

I've been a member of SAG AFTRA for over 30 years and a working actress for over 30 years. 

And let me tell you something, I've been through a lot of strikes, and you know what the greatest thing about them is? They end.  

There is a lot you can do right now, and that's getting ready.  

The number one thing I recommend to actors getting out of drama school is learning "the Language of the Agents and the Casting Directors."

If you think you learned it in drama school, I am here to tell you that, no, you did not. Chances are that you did not learn what the industry was like from the agents and the casting director's points of view. 

Some of the things to know, though, is that yes, you are the newbies on the block, and you are fresh meat. Everybody's all excited about you, but this is the thing you need to know is there have been thousands of...

So now what?

"Few situations, no matter how greatly they appear to demand it, can be bettered by going berserk."

It's important to put all of this into perspective.

This is survivable. It's going to be survivable. Is it tough? Is it a pain in the neck? Does it potentially throw off some of our career plans? Does it maybe stop some stuff that we hoped would go forward and now isn't because of the strike?

Absolutely.

Is it survivable? Is it manageable? The answer is yes, it is.

Us freaking out about it doesn't do us any good. What I would say is, Let's try and move into accepting it.

I need to do what I can to be proactive in supporting the writers and keep the focus on myself.

I need to take care of myself, my finances, my family, and especially my sanity.

So let's look at how we deal with panic and uncertainty during this time.

"Don't panic. If panic strikes, we do not have to allow it to control our behaviors."

I don't have to let this strike control my behavior.

"Behav...

Ken Rea’s Outstanding Actor Class

So people have been asking me about the writer's strike.

Keep the focus on yourself.

But what can you do? Use this opportunity to let go of drama.

There's a great Michael Jordan quote, “Why would I worry about a shot that I haven't even taken yet?”

Everybody is worried about something that hasn't even happened yet.

Now let's talk about how that affects us as a human being.

We're going to talk about that in a moment. But I just want to talk about this subject and my own experience with worrying about a bunch of stuff that I cannot even control. What it does is it uses up my energy. 

When I am worried about something that is truly probably, if you think about it, none of my business.

If I am trying to get somebody to do something, I am out of myself and into control.

So when it comes to this "potential writer's strike," I again urge you to think about keeping the focus on myself, and taking care of myself pays enormous dividends. 

Simple Ex...