The UK Acting CV — A Genuinely Different Document
A British acting CV is not an American acting résumé with the spellings changed. It is a different size of paper, a different set of fields, and — in one crucial column — a different convention entirely. It also does not want the one thing half the internet insists it wants.
Start with the correction, because it is the reason this chapter exists.
You will be told, on page after page, that a British acting CV opens with a short personal statement or profile.
Backstage UK says the opposite, in its own words: the cover letter or mini-biography is “not appropriate” for an acting CV. And the reason is one sentence long: “Casting directors are busy people and are more interested in what you can do rather than why you do it.”
So where did the personal statement come from? It came from the corporate British CV — where a profile paragraph is completely standard — and from generic CV-writing companies who know that document and have never seen a casting one. They took a convention from a graduate job application and bolted it onto a casting document. It has been circulating for years, it is wrong, and it is wrong in a way that is very easy to trace.
One thing that does exist and is not the same thing: Spotlight profiles have a free-text “About Me” box. That is a platform field, not a CV section. And Spotlight’s own guidance is explicit that it is the one part of your profile that is not searchable — credits must go in the designated Credits area to appear in a casting search at all. A beautifully written paragraph in the About Me box is invisible to the people looking for you.
The eight real differences
1. A4, not 8x10. Backstage UK: your CV is “a single A4 page.” Nothing is trimmed. Nothing is stapled to a photograph. The entire American ritual of cutting your résumé down to match a ten-inch headshot does not happen in Britain — and an American actor performing it in a London office is carrying out a rite that nobody in the room recognises.
2. Playing age is not optional — it is a mandatory field. Spotlight requires it: “Your playing age means the range of ages that you can convincingly play as an actor and is mandatory information.” Spotlight’s own rule of thumb is roughly five years either side of your real age — and its own warning is the driest line on its help pages: “A casting director is unlikely to look at someone claiming to be able to play ‘4–99’.”
3. Your real age never appears. Backstage UK: “As a rule, don’t include your actual age or date of birth as this might distract from your playing age.” Same conclusion as America, arrived at from a completely different direction — and the legal picture behind it is not remotely what you think it is.
4. The thumbnail headshot is standard, top right. Not contested here, not a matter of taste. Backstage UK simply says “the top right should have a thumbnail headshot.” This is one place where the British convention is cleaner than the American one: because the CV travels alone as a PDF, it carries its own face.
5. Column two is the character’s name — even on screen credits. This is the big one, and almost nobody names it. Backstage UK specifies the credit line as “production title, role, venue or company, and director.” Role. Not role type. The American split — Lead/Supporting/Co-Star for screen, character name for stage — is the whole of Chapter VI, and it does not survive the Atlantic crossing. Write “Co-Star” on a CV for a London agent and you have announced exactly which country’s advice you have been reading.
6. Four items per line, not three columns. Production, role, company, director. All four, every time.
7. The driving licence is expected. Backstage UK: “State if you have a driving licence and whether it’s clean.” In America, having a licence is nothing and driving a manual is a special skill. In Britain, the licence itself is a field — and a British actor who drives a manual and does not say so has left money on the table.
8. Equity, and the accent asterisk. One union covering stage and screen, rather than America’s separate AEA and SAG-AFTRA. And your native accent is marked with an asterisk — a tiny, specific convention that instantly reads as British to anyone who knows.
Spotlight is not a listings site. It is a credential.
Here is the fact that reorganises everything for a UK actor: in Britain, your CV largely is your Spotlight profile. Credits are typed into a structured Credits section. Height, eye colour, hair colour and playing age are searchable fields — Spotlight says they “are all used to search for performers.” The whole document is a database record with a photograph on it.
And it is gated. You do not sign up for Spotlight; you qualify for it. Its published joining criteria give three routes in.
Professional experience — at least one featured role on an Equity or equivalent union contract, or at least two credits where you were contracted as a performer. Minimum-wage-compliant profit-share counts. Self-produced work counts, in Spotlight’s words, “as long as you can show evidence of financial/contractual gain from the work and that the work was performed to a paying audience.”
Professional training — at least one year full-time at RQF Level 5 or above, or two years part-time vocational. GCSEs, A-levels, BTECs, LAMDA exams and HNCs are explicitly excluded, and so are hybrid degrees such as Literature and Drama.
Professional recommendation — from a Spotlight-registered agent, or from a member of the CDG, CSA or CDA.
And what Spotlight will not accept as a qualifying credit, in its own list: extra and supporting-artist work. Stunt credits. Amateur and unpaid work. Productions during training courses.
British beginners get burned on this constantly, so let us separate it cleanly. What may go on your CV, and what Spotlight will accept as evidence of professional status, are two entirely different tests.
Your drama school production absolutely may go on your CV. Everybody’s does. It simply will not get you into Spotlight. Same credit, two doors, two sets of rules — and almost nobody says this out loud.
On price: we are not printing a membership figure. We saw third-party numbers quoted and could not verify a single one against Spotlight’s own pricing page, and prices move. Go and look at Spotlight’s memberships page yourself.
And one line from Spotlight’s own FAQ that belongs in the next chapter as much as this one: “it could also lead to your removal from Spotlight if any information you provide is found to be fraudulently or falsely provided.” That is the only documented, published, institutional consequence for résumé lying that exists anywhere in this industry. It is British. It is current. And it is a gate, not a scolding.
The same actor, the same career, in two countries
Here is Jordan Reeves as an American résumé. Everything on it is correct — for America.
JORDAN REEVES
Non-Union
jordan.reeves.actor@[domain] · +44 7700 900xxx
Height: 5'8" Hair: Dark Brown Eyes: Hazel
Playing Age: 24–32 Based: London / Manchester
FILM
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
THE LONG WEEKEND * Supporting dir. Aisling Kavanagh
Cormorant Pictures
HOLD THE LINE Lead dir. Femi Adeyemi
Northern Film School
TELEVISION
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
CASUALTY WARD Co-Star BBC Studios / dir. Lena Okafor
THE MERSEY LINE Co-Star Red Kite Television
THEATRE
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
HAMLET Laertes Bridgewater Playhouse
dir. Rebecca Sallow
A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE Rodolpho Salford Rep
dir. Callum Ives
SPECIAL SKILLS
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
PRACTICAL: Full clean UK driving licence — MANUAL · UK & US passports
* THE LONG WEEKEND — Official Selection, Manchester Short Film Festival 2025And here is the same man, the same year, the same credits, as a British CV. Read the two against each other and every difference in the list above becomes visible at once.
JORDAN REEVES [ thumbnail headshot ]
Agent: Okonjo Management · agent@[domain] · +44 20 xxxx xxxx
Spotlight PIN: xxxx-xxxx-xxxx
Playing Age 24–32 · Height 5'8" · Hair Dark Brown · Eyes Hazel
Base: London · Also based Manchester · Union: Equity
TELEVISION
Casualty Ward Dave BBC Studios dir. Lena Okafor
The Mersey Line Ryan Tallow Red Kite Television dir. Sam Peretz
FILM
The Long Weekend Nathan Cormorant Pictures dir. Aisling Kavanagh
Hold the Line Marcus Northern Film School dir. Femi Adeyemi
Salt and Sand Isaac Ravensbourne Shorts dir. Priya Raghunathan
THEATRE
Hamlet Laertes Bridgewater Playhouse dir. Rebecca Sallow
A View from the Rodolpho Salford Rep dir. Callum Ives
Bridge
The Crucible John Proctor Royal Central School dir. Marianne Doust
of Speech and Drama
Love and Information Ensemble Bridgewater Playhouse dir. Rebecca Sallow
TRAINING
BA (Hons) Acting — Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
Meisner Technique — Delia Moncrieff, The Actors Rooms (ongoing)
On-Camera Technique — Ray Ellis, Northern Screen Studio, Manchester
Stage Combat — BADC Advanced (Unarmed, Rapier & Dagger)
SKILLS
Accents: Manchester*, RP, General American, Standard Scottish,
Northern Irish, New York
Languages: French (conversational)
Singing: Baritone, sight-reads
Combat: BADC Advanced · Horse riding (English, jumping — 6 yrs)
Driving: Full clean UK licence — manual
Other: Enhanced DBS (current) · UK & US passports · Can cry on cue
* native accentThe credits are identical. But Nathan, Marcus and Isaac have replaced Supporting, Lead and Supporting, because a British CV reports the character and an American one reports the tier. The union line has changed from “Non-Union” to “Equity.” A Spotlight PIN has appeared, and it has no American equivalent whatsoever. Television has moved above film. The driving licence has been promoted from a buried special skill to a field of its own. And a photograph has arrived in the top-right corner.
That is nine changes to one page — which is why you do not translate an American résumé into a British CV. You rebuild it. The facts are the same. The document is not.
One thing we deliberately did not put on it: an Equity membership number. It is widely assumed to belong there, and we could not source that to Spotlight, to Equity, or to Backstage UK. So we write “union status,” which is verifiable — and we tell you we went looking for the other thing and came back empty-handed.
Next: the honest chapter — age, student films, and what actually happens when you lie.
Want Will to Coach You Through It?
Reading is one thing. Working 1-on-1 with a working actor who booked Oppenheimer is another.