What agencies actually publish, which almost nobody quotes
We read twenty agency submission pages directly. Zero of the twenty-nine competitor pages we audited quotes a single one of them verbatim, which is remarkable given they are public.
Start with the refusals, because they are unambiguous. Buchwald states that it does not accept unsolicited submissions of any kind. There is no submissions page, only a general enquiries address.
Innovative Artists has a page titled Submissions which is entirely a refusal. Unsolicited material will not be read, forwarded or discussed internally, and will be deleted unread or destroyed.
Gersh extends its refusal to social media, mail, fax and email, and states it is under no obligation to consider, review, evaluate, respond to or return anything. These are not brush-offs. They are policies written by lawyers.
The most common instruction on an agency submission page is a negative one. No walk-ins. No drop-offs. No phone follow-up. No social media. No mailed packages. No attachments over a certain size.
One agency states that materials mailed through the postal service will be thrown away unopened. Another rejects anything arriving postage due or requiring a signature.
And departments open and close independently. One agency we read was accepting commercial and youth submissions while its adult theatrical division was closed, which is the sort of thing you only learn by reading the page on the day.
One agency still takes submissions by post only, in 2026, and asks not to be phoned, faxed or visited. The range of accepted practice is much wider than any single piece of advice can cover.
Which is the real instruction. There is no general method. There is the page in front of you, and whether you did what it said.
The two completely different things called a referral
Everybody says you need one. Almost nobody distinguishes the version that works from the version that does not, and the difference is the whole subject.
A working Los Angeles agent, writing under a standing trade pseudonym, is unusually direct about this. He says addressing unsolicited requests for representation is not his job, and explains why he stopped replying at all.
Once you open that door it never closes, he writes. Actors are so starved for acknowledgement that even a quick pass feels like a connection.
Then he gives the exception, in terms. He will definitely get back to you if the first line of your email is that you were referred by a named industry person. And the referral has to be real, because you cannot bluff.
A true referral, he says, is when the person contacts him directly and tells him why he should meet you. When that happens, he always takes the meeting.
Elsewhere he says a referral is not really worth much unless the referrer contacts the agent themselves.
So there are two things both called a referral. Writing referred by so-and-so in your subject line raises your open rate and nothing more. That person emailing the agent about you converts to a meeting. Only the second is what agents mean.
What counts as a referrer is broader than people assume. A casting director, a current client of that agency, a teacher, or a manager are all documented routes.
There is a variant worth knowing too. One casting office requires that your work already be known to them through stage or film performance. There the referral is replaced by the agent having simply seen you.
Cold submissions do sometimes work, and there is evidence. A survey of boutique agencies found four New York agencies that explicitly view cold submissions, one of whom said the picture has to jump out at her.
A prominent manager is on the record saying a good cold approach occasionally lands. His example took the time to find common ground, and framed the ask as mentorship rather than representation. His condemnation is of the template: generic ones are a bad look.
What nobody has is a number. No agent anywhere on the record gives the proportion of their roster that arrived cold. We looked hard. Any page giving you a percentage has invented it.
What to send, and the exact words that get you deleted
This is the best evidenced part of the subject, because several agents have gone on the record with their actual deletion triggers.
One agent lists hers plainly. Anything longer than a short paragraph, her name misspelled, a request outside her specialty, or unnecessary detail about training and high school performances.
Her recommended subject line is seeking representation, your name, your city. Her closing thought is that it only takes one yes, not a hundred.
A former agent turned coach adds four more. Never open with to whom it may concern, and never open with my name is, because it is already in your signature.
His third and fourth are filler and star comparisons. He quotes a polled agent on the latter. Even if the actor does resemble a star they mentioned, it does not mean they have any of their talent.
An agent is on the record that two actresses with falsified résumés who read for him were automatically discounted.
A casting director describes catching an actor claiming the lead in a production he had himself directed.
The same casting director describes something worse and worth knowing. An agent instructing an actor to fabricate film credits. The pressure does not always come from the actor.
The meeting, and the questions that tell you what you are looking at
It is a job interview in both directions, and the agent who says so publishes the questions he expects to be asked.
A casting director who runs meetings makes the first point. Be as prepared to get to know the agent and their needs as to read, because you may or may not be asked to perform.
She makes a second one that people underrate. If you are short with others but pour on the syrup with the agent, that will not go unnoticed. How you treat the assistant is part of it.
One term deserves a specific look, and the union publishes a warning about it. It does not consider the industry replacement contract valid unless the union has approved it.
Its listed risks are worth knowing before you sit down. Representation demanded across writing, producing and directing worldwide, commission on all your income in all areas in perpetuity, removal of union arbitration, irrevocable payment authorisations, and removal of the right to leave for lack of work.
Use our photographer, and why the answer depends on the state
This is the most common soft scam at this stage, and in California it is not a grey area. It has a statutory subdivision.
The California provision is explicit. No talent agency may refer an artist to any person or company in which it has a direct or indirect financial interest for other services.
The statute then enumerates them. Photography, audition tapes, demonstration reels, business management, personal management, coaching, dramatic school, casting brochures and agency directories. A second subdivision bans taking referral fees from any of them.
So the same sentence has two different meanings depending on where you are sitting. In California, use our photographer is a statutory violation with a named subdivision. In New York it is a red flag you have to argue about.
One more California detail is genuinely useful and almost never published. The commission cannot exceed whatever the agency itself filed in its schedule of fees with the Labor Commissioner. Which means you can ask what that schedule says.
The scams aimed at exactly this moment
Looking for a first agent is the most exposed an actor ever is, and 2026 has produced a specific and well documented wave. Zero of twenty-nine competitor pages covers any of it.
The federal consumer regulator issued an alert in December 2025. An unexpected text from a supposed talent scout offers an audition for a real film or show, asking whether you are still available for a virtual open call.
The audition turns out to be a high pressure sales pitch for a photo shoot or classes. The regulator’s line is the one to memorize. Paying to get a job is always a sign of a scam.
Trade reporting in June 2026 documented impersonation of named, real casting directors by email and social media, offering auditions on real or invented projects.
The sequence is consistent. Materials requested, positive feedback given, then a job offered conditional on union membership fees, then a fake union administrator asks for one to three thousand dollars by transfer or app.
The scale is the striking part. One casting director receives more than two of these a day, with thirteen fake addresses identified for her alone. Another office found eight. And it has gone audio: one casting director on the record said there are no words for how creepy it was to hear my voice.
The union published its own notice in January 2026, and its two sentences do most of the work. You should never pay for a job, and the union will never ask a third party to pay a joining fee on your behalf.
It also gives a domain tell. Legitimate union mail comes only from three named domains, and you check the sender’s actual address rather than the display name.
The California scam statute has been used. In 2017 a city attorney charged twenty-eight defendants across five casting workshops, eighteen of them casting directors, facing up to a year in jail and ten thousand dollars each.
The federal regulator has also sued the pay to be listed model directly, in a 2018 case alleging telemarketers falsely told members that casting directors had chosen them, and that personal information was collected from over a hundred thousand members under thirteen.
And the numbers are not small. The regulator’s 2024 data book records 126,217 reports in the business and job opportunities category, $751 million in losses and a median loss of $2,250.
The realistic path, and when to send
Three things people assume are prerequisites are not, and the timing advice is better sourced than you would expect.
You do not need to be in the union. Several agencies we read represent union and non-union talent explicitly, and the franchise question matters far more at signing than at submission.
You do not need to be in Los Angeles or New York either, and that is now well sourced. One agency requires willingness to work as a local hire in New Mexico, Los Angeles or the Southeast. Another runs separate Texas and California queues.
The same agent who will not read your cold email also wrote this. When you are just starting out, you do not really need an agent.
A working actor puts numbers on it, and they are his own rather than data. He books about seventy per cent of his work through his own submissions against thirty through his agent.
The real asymmetry is narrower than the folklore. Some casting breakdowns go only to the agent and manager tier of the same platform. That tier is what an agent actually buys you, and it is a genuine advantage rather than a myth, but it is not the same as being unable to work.
One outcome is worth naming because it is common and rarely explained. Being hip pocketed is an informal arrangement to submit you without a contract, with no expiry and no obligation on either side.
It has a real cost. The informal status can deter other agents, and we could find no agent side or legal source describing the practice at all.
Twenty-nine pages, and the eight things none of them does
We opened every page ranking for this question and its variants. The gap here is not staleness so much as an almost complete absence of primary sourcing.
Three concrete errors are worth naming. One page updated three weeks ago inverts the commission figures, warning readers about more than twenty per cent on union work and ten on non-union. It is the other way round.
Another lists an agency as a mid-career option. That agency announced it was ceasing operations five months before the page was last updated. A third still lists an agency that was acquired in 2022.
And one ranks well while being confidently wrong about the whole structure. It publishes two hundred agency names and describes the franchise system as though it were intact, never mentioning 2002.
Grading the sources
This subject is mostly folklore, so separating what is documented from what is repeated matters more here than anywhere. Here is where each claim sits.
Where we differ from the standard account
How do I submit to an agent?
Commonly saidGeneral advice about a strong package, on eleven of twenty-nine pages, with no agency named.
What we foundEvery open agency publishes its own channel, formats and often a subject line. There is no general method, only the page in front of you.
Will a big agency read my email?
Commonly saidRarely addressed directly, with only two pages distinguishing majors from boutiques.
What we foundNo. Three majors publish written refusals, one stating unsolicited material is deleted unread or destroyed.
Do I need a referral?
Commonly saidYes, universally, with no distinction drawn about what a referral actually is.
What we foundTwo different things share the name. Naming somebody raises your open rate. That person emailing the agent gets the meeting.
Do I need a reel?
Commonly saidUsually treated as essential for getting representation at all.
What we foundNot for a first meeting. Several agencies ask for photo and résumé only, and one wants a purpose shot two minute video instead.
What if my résumé is empty?
Commonly saidFill it with transferable experience, with no guidance on where the line is.
What we foundSeveral agencies gate on ongoing classes rather than credits. Training with no credits is a recognised category. Invented credits are not.
They want me to use their photographer.
Commonly saidDescribed as a red flag, on the minority of pages that mention it.
What we foundIn California it is a statutory violation naming photography, coaching and dramatic school specifically. New York has no equivalent provision.
How do I check an agency is real?
Commonly saidNot addressed on eighteen of twenty-nine pages, and only one gives an executable step.
What we foundFour registers you can search, a legend required on Californian contracts, and a licence number required on New York ones.
When should I submit?
Commonly saidWhenever you are ready, on most pages, with no seasonal guidance at all.
What we foundThree named sources agree. Aim for December, and June to August. Avoid pilot season and the autumn episodic run.
So the useful version of this question is narrower than the one people ask. Not how do I get an agent, but which agencies are open this month, what does each of their pages actually instruct, and who do I know who will send an email on my behalf. The majors have told you in writing that they will not read you, which is information rather than rejection. The open ones have told you the subject line, the file format and how long to wait, and following those instructions exactly is the cheapest signal of professionalism available to somebody with no credits. And whatever else happens, the money moves toward you. Anyone who wants paying before you have been paid is not an agent, whatever the letterhead says.