Actor CV Examples & Writing Guide

This sample is for a working actor with independent film, a few TV days and steady regional theatre. Every name, production and company is invented. Note what is missing: no employment history, no home address and no personal statement paragraph. The line under the name is a stats line (vocal range, where you can work as a local, passport), which is what casting expects instead of prose.

If you have written a normal CV before, unlearn most of it. Casting directors look at hundreds of these a day and expect a very specific shape. Getting the shape wrong marks you as new before anyone reads a single credit.

• One page. Not one and a bit. Casting reads it in seconds, and a printed copy often goes on the back of your 10 by 8 headshot, so anything longer simply gets lost.
• Dates are optional. Many UK acting CVs show the year beside each credit, but you can leave years off if they invite guessing about your age or show gaps. Your playing age does that job instead.
• No home address. Where you are based and where you can work as a local, that is all. Casting needs to know if you can work in a city without travel and accommodation costs.
• No employment history. Your restaurant job does not go on this document, no matter how long you worked there.
• No career objective, no personal statement in the traditional sense, and no references line.
• Credits are grouped by medium, not by date: Film, Television, Theatre, and in that order for screen actors. Theatre actors put Theatre first.
• Never list supporting artist (background or extra) work as a credit. Casting can tell, and it reads as padding.
• Do not name individual commercials. Write 'Commercial conflicts available on request' so you do not lose a booking to a competing brand.

Each credit is three or four columns: production title, your role, then the director, theatre or production company. The role column is doing real work here, because it tells casting the size of the job you have actually done.

• Film roles: Lead or Supporting, or the character name, which many UK actors use for screen credits too. Avoid 'Featured', as it can be mistaken for supporting artist (background) work.
• Television: Series Regular, Recurring, Guest Lead, Guest. Use the wording from your contract or your agent, because casting reads it as the size of the job.
• Theatre: name your actual character, not a role type. 'Nora' says more than 'Lead'.
• Add the director's name for film and the theatre's name for stage. Casting recognises directors and theatres and it is often what earns the audition.
• For student and short films, list them under Film normally. Do not hide them, and do not label them 'student film' unless you want to.
• Understudy credits count. Write 'Viola (understudy, 4 performances)' so it is honest and still shows you were in the company.
• Online, Voice-Over, Corporate and Stills get their own small headings only if you have several credits in that medium.
• Order within each section by prominence, not by recency. Your best credit goes on top.

The special skills list is not filler. It is a searchable database of things you can be booked for, and actors get called from it constantly. It should be six to twelve lines, all of them true today, and all of them provable in a room.

• Accents and dialects: name them precisely. 'Irish (Dublin)' and 'Scottish (Glasgow)' are more useful than 'Irish and Scottish accents'. Only list what you could do cold in an audition.
• Languages: state your real level. Fluent, conversational, or 'can perform memorised text in'. Bilingual actors book from this line more than any other.
• Stage combat: unarmed, rapier and dagger, broadsword, quarterstaff. If you hold a certificate from a recognised UK stage combat academy, name the academy and the level, and note it is current.
• Singing: voice type and range, and whether you read music. Musical theatre actors should add belt range.
• Instruments, with honest level. 'Guitar (intermediate)' is fine. 'Guitar' when you know three chords is not.
• Movement and sport: dance styles and levels, gymnastics, martial arts with belt, horse riding with discipline, swimming, skating, skiing, motorcycle licence, scuba qualification.
• Practical production skills: teleprompter, self-tape setup, improv training levels, puppetry, clowning, motion capture experience, ADR.
• Documents that unblock a booking: valid passport, full driving licence and whether it covers manual cars, and the right to work in other countries such as an EU passport.
• One or two genuinely odd ones at the bottom. Casting people remember them, and they get used more often than you would expect.

Casting reads training to see who shaped you and whether you are still working on the craft. A list of famous school names with no teachers is weaker than a short list with the right names attached.

• Group by discipline: Acting, On-Camera, Voice and Speech, Movement, Improv, Musical Theatre. Two or three lines each is plenty.
• Write the technique, the school and the teacher: 'Two-year Meisner training, The Fennimore Studio (Alan Fennimore)'.
• Mark ongoing class as ongoing. It signals you are in the room every week, which matters to casting.
• Put your drama school course or degree on one line, with the course name, such as BA (Hons) Acting. A drama school place is a credential, not a credit.
• Workshops and short courses count if they are substantial. A weekend audition workshop does not need its own line.
• If you have very few credits, expand training and special skills to fill the page honestly rather than padding credits.

Every actor starts with an empty page, and casting knows it. A beginner CV is judged on whether it is honest, well laid out and shows you are training. What gets you rejected is faking credits or filling the page with supporting artist work.

1. 1Keep the standard layout. Same headings, same one page, same headshot. An empty but correctly formatted CV looks professional. A creative reinvention looks new.
2. 2List what you have actually done: school plays, youth theatre, amateur dramatics, university productions, student films, web series, a friend's short. Character name and the theatre or director, same as any other credit.
3. 3Put Training at the top instead of Film. If your training is your strongest material, lead with it. This is normal and casting will not blink.
4. 4Enrol in a class before you send anything out. One current weekly class turns 'no experience' into 'in training with a named teacher'.
5. 5Build the special skills section properly. This is where a beginner competes evenly with a working actor, because an accent or a skill is a bookable asset regardless of credits.
6. 6Say your Equity status plainly: Equity member, student member, or leave it off. UK productions do not cast only union members, so not being in Equity is not a weakness at this stage.
7. 7Do student films and low-budget shorts to fill the Film section. Directors from film school hire the same actors for years.
8. 8Get a decent headshot before you worry about the CV. A weak headshot loses the audition before anyone reads the credits.

The base format holds, but each of these has its own expectations and searching for the general template will steer you wrong.

• Musical theatre: Theatre comes first, then Musical Theatre as its own section if you have enough. Add voice type and range to the header (soprano, belt to E5), plus dance training and level, since dance calls are a real filter.
• Voice-over: this is a different document. Casting listens to a showreel first, so the link matters more than credits. List categories (commercial, animation, audiobook, video game, e-learning), your home studio setup with the microphone and interface, and turnaround time.
• Child and teen actors: no home address, no school name, and no personal social media. Put the parent or guardian's contact, or the agent's, as the only phone number. Add current playing age rather than date of birth. In the UK a child performer usually needs a performance licence from the local authority for each production, and may need a chaperone approved by the local authority; your agent or the production arranges the licence.
• Commercial-only actors: keep conflicts off the page, note improv training and any on-camera presenting, and add whether you have a valid passport for overseas shoots.
• Actors applying to drama school: list every production including school and youth theatre, add all training and teachers, and include the audition speeches you have prepared if the school asks.
• Supporting artist or stand-in work: keep this off your acting CV entirely. Track it separately for your own records.

• Most UK submissions go through Spotlight and email. If you print, use A4 with a small headshot at the top, or trim the page to fit the back of a 10 by 8 inch headshot and staple it at all four corners so it does not flap in a stack.
• Name and Equity status at the top, large. Contact details next: your agent's phone if you have one, or your own mobile and email if you do not. Never your address.
• Height, hair and eye colour and a playing age range are standard in the header. Weight and actual age are not listed.
• Font: something plain and readable at arm's length, around 10 to 12 point. No design flourishes, no colour blocks, and one current headshot only.
• Keep a PDF version named firstname-lastname-acting-cv.pdf for email submissions, and keep your Spotlight, Casting Networks and Mandy profiles matching it. Casting will notice if the online credits and the paper credits differ.
• Update the online profiles the same week you update the paper one. Most submissions now happen through those platforms, and self-tape requests come with a deadline of days.
• In the US the same document is called an acting resume: strictly one page on the back of an 8 by 10 headshot, with no dates. If you are submitting in the US, use that format instead.
• Bring at least ten printed headshot and CV sets to any in-person audition or general meeting.

“I flip the headshot over and look for three things: who trained you, which directors and theatres have already trusted you, and whether the special skills are real. If the page has dates, an address and a list of restaurant jobs, I know before the slate what kind of session this will be.”