What A Manager Does

Peter Kluge came to speak at The Actors Network and I was really quite impressed. He's a former-actor/business-man turned talent manager. He really reminded me of Aaron Eckhart in so far as he was tan and charming. What struck me as being really unique about Peter is that he was completely devoid of smarm. The man was smarmless. When faced with the possibility of dropping and F-bomb, he instead literally spoke the word "blank".

The following are some excerpts from my notes.

On actor's taking themselves too seriously:

In the grand scheme of things, we're not that important. Sure we tell a story, and sometimes we get a message across, but in the end, we're entertainers. We're here to entertain people.

In response to SAG having way too many contracts. What's next? The...

after school Disney, blank me up the butt rate?

On most actors' fatal flaw: myopia

To separate yourself from the vast majority of actors, don't be so me oriented. Don't just walk into an audition room and forget to engage with others as human beings. Be nice to assistants and receptionists. They often do the submissions for you - or cast the deciding vote in a casting office.

What a manager does:

• A manager fights for their clients, they submit them on projects they are right for - they can be specific because they have fewer clients.
• Managers represent you across the board, which means they get a piece of the pie whether you shoot a commercial, film, series, or print ad.
• Your manager helps you to better market yourself. He/she won't intentionally give you negative feedback, it's not in their best interests. If they tell you that CDs say you read like an ice queen - don't take it as a criticism, use it as the starting point for your new ice queen marketing campaign.