The Truth

Everyone tells you. Your acting coach. Your publicist. Your agent. Your manager.

Don’t lie on your resume because a lie will eventually come back to haunt you.

It’s very good advice, and if you’re a working actor, you probably took this advice to heart long ago.

But here’s the thing—What if you don’t realize that there’s a lie on your resume? What if, for instance, you have listed in your skills section ‘Dialects: British RP, Cockney, American Southern, New York, Irish’ because six years ago you were enrolled in a respected acting conservatory where those dialects were taught as part of the curriculum?

And you got an ‘A’ in the class?

And your instructor told you that you were ‘really good with accents?’

That sounds fantastic!

But —

When was the last time you actually tested any of these skills?

When was the last time you recorded yourself acting while using your New York dialect and had that recording analyzed by a professional dialect coach?

When did you last walk into an Irish bar and successfully convince the Irish patrons that you were from Kilkenny?

If you want to be a competitive actor, any skill (dialect or otherwise) that isn’t performance ready today should be removed from your resume until you have given it a thorough tune-up and put it to the test…

…because even an accidental lie will eventually come back to haunt you.