Commercial vs Theatrical — The Only Two Headshots You Need
You have been told you need two headshots: a smiling commercial one and a serious theatrical one. That distinction is real as a submission category. It is far shakier as a photographic one. And the people insisting you need two sessions are, almost without exception, the people selling two sessions.
Where the “industry standard” actually came from
The canonical statement of commercial vs theatrical is a Backstage article published in March 2016. It was written by Marc Cartwright, an LA headshot photographer.
That is not a smear. Cartwright is good, he is experienced, and he is by a wide margin the most-quoted single voice in Backstage’s entire headshot coverage. But look at what that means. The “industry standard” on commercial vs theatrical is, to a significant degree, one photographer’s article, syndicated by one trade publication, and then repeated by every SEO blog on earth for a decade. It is not a rule handed down by casting. It is content, and it worked.
His actual claims are reasonable. Theatrical: more depth, more layers, grounded, earthy wardrobe, selling an identifiable personality type. Commercial: designed to appeal to advertisers, broader, warmer, brighter wardrobe, trustworthy enough to sell a product — “Are you the upscale luxury car driver or the college student compact car driver?”
Even Cartwright doesn’t say “commercial = smile, theatrical = don’t”
This is the bit nobody notices, and it is sitting in plain sight in the founding document. Here he is on theatrical:
And on commercial: “it really depends on your type — but for the most part, smiling is recommended… The goal of your photographer should be to capture an authentic moment that feels alive, not just a plastered on smile and a head tilt.”
He hedges it into near-meaninglessness, and he is right to. The absolutist version of the rule — smile for commercial, glower for theatrical — is a corruption of its own source document. It got flattened into a slogan on the way down the SEO chain, because a slogan is easier to sell than a nuance.
Before you accept any headshot rule, find out who wrote it and what they sell. Almost every rule in this industry traces back to someone with a booking calendar. That doesn’t make them wrong. It does mean you should check.
The dissent comes from inside the house
The most explicit dissenter we found is also a headshot photographer: Vanie Poyey, 26 years in LA, who states she has shot over 6,000 actors.
And: “90% of headshot looks are actually crossover looks. So what changes from commercial to theatrical? Not smiley vs. non-smiley. Your ESSENCE.”
Now watch the tail of the pitch, because this is the part you should learn to spot for yourself. She continues: “You DON’T need two different headshot photographers. You need one photographer who directs you like an ACTOR.”
She is not saying you don’t need two headshots. She is dissenting from the two-session model in order to sell you her one session. That is still a commercial pitch. It is just a different one, and it happens to be aimed at the guy who wrote the Backstage article.
And then — this is the tell that the whole thing is unsettled — her own site’s FAQ says the opposite: “Most actors in Los Angeles need both types to cover the full range of their submissions.” The same photographer says both things on the same domain. That is not hypocrisy. That is what a question with no answer looks like.
So here is the honest position, and we will not pretend to more certainty than we have: we could not find a single credible source with no financial stake who says the distinction is dead. What we found was photographers arguing about how to package it. That is worth knowing.
Does the UK even have this concept? Broadly: no.
This is a genuine finding, and it is the kind of thing you only notice if you actually read the sources instead of the blogs.
Spotlight’s casting-director panel features eleven working UK and Irish casting directors and thousands of words of transcript on the subject of headshots. The phrases “commercial headshot” and “theatrical headshot” do not appear once. Not once. The distinction is simply not part of their vocabulary.
What the UK asks for instead is variety within neutrality:
And they ask for things American guidance never mentions at all. Emma Ashton: “If it’s a guy and he’s got a beard sometimes and not a beard, then it’s really good to have the range so we can see what he looks like without beard, because that is always asked when they come into a casting.”
The UK’s variety axis is physical: beard/no beard, glasses/no glasses, hair up/hair down. Facts about your face. Not commercial/theatrical. If you are a UK actor, you do not need a commercial headshot and a theatrical headshot. You need four to six genuinely different, genuinely neutral, genuinely recent photographs, one of which is warmer than the others. That is a materially different instruction — and your UK photographer will still try to sell you the American one, because the content that trained everybody is American.
How many looks, really? Follow the money. Then follow the platform.
The two positions here are exactly what you would predict from who is talking.
The photographer’s position, from Anthony Mongiello in Backstage: “keep getting headshots until you get working headshots — and honestly if you can afford to, then you keep getting headshots every 6 months until you have 6-10 headshots that work really well.” At his own quoted rate of $250 a look, that is a $1,500 to $2,500 prescription written by the man holding the camera.
The casting director’s position, from Thom Hammond, above: four to six photographs. Total. Not per session. Ever.
And then the platform settles it on pure economics, which is where it should have started. Actors Access gives you two free photos. Every additional photo costs $10 to post — and they cannot be swapped out for free. (Breakdown Services help centre, updated February 2025.)
Do the arithmetic. A six-look session produces four images you must pay to put online — and pay again to replace when you change your hair. Buying more looks than you can afford to post is buying inventory. You are not building a portfolio. You are building a warehouse.
The defensible line
Here is where we land, and we will show our working rather than pretend to certainty nobody has earned.
The commercial/theatrical distinction is real as a submission-category and an agency-division convention in the US. It is substantially overstated as a photographic one — even by the photographer who popularised it. It does not exist in UK casting vocabulary. And it is not dead, because no disinterested party has said so.
Two looks is the floor. Three is comfortable. Past three, you are buying stock you may not be able to afford to shelve. If someone is selling you eight, ask them who they think is going to click on numbers five through eight.
What actually changes between a commercial and a theatrical frame is not your shirt and it is not your smile. It is what you are thinking about — and that, unlike a second session, is free.
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