Film, TV and Commercial
Screen credits report the size of the part, not the name of the character — and everything else about the film and TV résumé follows from that one fact. The commercial résumé is stranger still: it is the only document in acting where the correct move is to say less. You do not list your commercials. You withhold them, deliberately, and there is a standing sentence for it.
An honest note before we start. This cluster is small — around 280 searches a month for every film, TV and commercial résumé phrase combined, against roughly 2,750 for theatre. That is not because screen actors do not exist. It is because the screen submission has largely stopped being a document at all, and the actors doing it are typing into forms rather than Googling for a template.
So this is one chapter, not three. It is also the chapter with the single most useful piece of unknown information in the entire section, and it is in the commercial half.
Column two is the tier. That is the whole film and TV rule.
Lead. Supporting. Featured. Co-Star. Guest Star. Recurring. Series Regular. Not the character’s name. Never the character’s name.
The reason, once more, because it is the load-bearing idea of this whole section: nobody knows who “Marcus” is. Marcus could be the lead of the picture or a man who says “sir?” once in a corridor. The title of the film tells the reader nothing either — an untitled indie feature carries no reputation the way the Almeida does. Only the tier tells them anything at all. The full ladder, with definitions, is in Chapter VI.
Three more things, all sourced, all quick.
Separate the categories. Marci Liroff, casting director: “Don’t bunch different categories together for your acting credits. Separate film, TV, and new media—in that order.” Film, then television, then new media. Do not merge them into a single heading called ACTING EXPERIENCE, which is what a corporate CV would do and which is precisely what makes the bad résumé in Chapter III read as an amateur document.
Student films: name the most impressive true thing. Two sources disagree slightly and we are going to print both. Coach Joseph Pearlman: “If you’ve just done student films, list the name of the director rather than the name of the university, unless it’s a prestigious film school, such as AFI or NYU.” Acting Studio Chicago says the opposite — name the college, always, as the production company. The synthesis: column three needs the most impressive true thing available. If the school has a name, use the school. If it does not and the director has since done something, use the director. If neither, use the school anyway, because “Student Film” as a bare phrase tells nobody anything at all.
Festivals and awards: asterisk and footnote. Liroff: “when it comes to awards and nominations, add an asterisk next to the project above and footnote the award name and year below.” Pearlman says the same, independently. Two sources, one mechanism — this is a real convention, and it is the correct way to flag a good short film without cluttering the table.
And one genuine contradiction we will not paper over: industrials. Liroff says do not list industrial films. Cathryn Hartt’s standard section order includes industrials. Both are on the record at Backstage. Pick one, be consistent, and stop worrying about it.
Now the commercial résumé, which does the opposite of everything
You have done three commercials. A bank, a phone network, a soft drink. Real jobs, national spots, actual money.
You do not list them.
Two independent sources, one instruction. And here is the mechanism, properly explained, because this is the bit that makes the chapter worth reading.
What a conflict actually is — and how it costs you work silently
A conflict is a commercial you have running for a product that bars you from appearing in a competitor’s spot in the same category. If you are the face of a bank, you cannot be the face of another bank. That is the deal, it is in the contract, and it is why commercial actors get paid what they get paid.
Now put yourself in the casting office. They are casting a Pepsi spot. Your résumé says Coca-Cola. They cannot tell from the page whether that ad ran last week or six years ago. They cannot tell whether the contract has expired. They cannot tell whether you are cleared.
And they will not spend the time finding out. There are four hundred other résumés. They move on.
You never find out. Nobody phones to tell you that you were crossed off for a conflict that expired in 2021. Listing your commercial work does not showcase your commercial work. It silently disqualifies you from commercial work. It is the most expensive well-intentioned mistake on the acting résumé, and almost nobody explains it.
So the correct commercial section is one line long, and it is the single most professional sentence on the whole document.
COMMERCIAL ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Conflicts available upon request.
That is it. That is the whole section, and it is correct even if you have done exactly one commercial — Acting Studio Chicago says so explicitly. The line does three things at once: it confirms you have commercial experience, it demonstrates that you know how the industry works, and it hands the casting office control of a conversation they will have with your agent if they need to.
The beginner’s escape hatch — and it is clever
But you are starting out. You have one commercial, you are proud of it, and you have a page with a lot of white space on it. Acting Studio Chicago gives you a genuine way through:
Name the agency. Name the role. Name the production company. Never name the brand. You get the credit’s weight without the conflict’s cost.
COMMERCIAL
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Conflicts available upon request.
Ogilvy Northern Principal dir. Marta Vance
Fieldhouse Films
Crane & Wilder Principal dir. Ben Otoo
Peninsula Content
BBH (regional) Featured Sixteen FramesAnd now the wrong version, which is what almost every beginner does, and which reads — to them — like the proudest part of the page.
COMMERCIALS ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Coca-Cola (national) Lead 2022 Vodafone (regional) Principal 2023 Barclays (online) Featured 2024 Nike — “Run Together” Hero 2024 Also available: full commercial reel and list of all brands worked with.
- The brands are named. Every one of them is now a conflict a casting office must assume is live, because they cannot tell from a page whether it has expired.
- A soft-drink spot bars you from every competing soft drink. A bank bars you from every competing bank. You have just eliminated four whole categories of commercial work.
- Nobody will phone to tell you. You will simply stop being called in, and you will never learn why.
- The years make it worse, not better — a casting office will not do contract archaeology on your behalf, and a 2022 date does not prove you are cleared.
- “Hero” is not a standard commercial tier and it is not doing the job that “Principal” or “Featured” would do.
- “List of all brands worked with” volunteers, in writing, to expand the exact information the convention exists to withhold.
- The standing line is missing. “Conflicts available upon request” is the sentence that does all of this correctly, in six words.
Here is a thing we are printing because it is true and because it teaches something. Backstage has an article telling actors not to name the brand. Backstage’s own downloadable template has a commercial section with a column headed “Brand.” Two pages on the same site, opposite instructions, both live. It is the best demonstration we have of why you should not trust a template you have not thought about — not even a good one, not even from the trade paper. Read the reasoning, then decide. The reasoning here is Liroff’s and Acting Studio Chicago’s, and it is about conflicts, and it wins.
And background work, one final time
It is not a tier and it is not a credit. Marci Liroff: “do not list background work—it makes you look like an amateur.” Bonnie Gillespie: “Calling extra work ‘featured’ on a resume is telling a lie.” In the UK, Spotlight’s joining criteria list Extra and Supporting Artist work among the things they explicitly will not accept as a qualifying credit.
The full fight, including the casting director who dissents and the exact conditions under which she permits it, is in Chapter IV, which is where beginners actually need it.
The actor-model question, answered honestly
People search for “acting modeling resume,” and the traffic is worth real money, and we could not find a single authoritative industry source on the actor-model hybrid résumé. Not one. So we are not going to invent one.
What we can tell you is what the industry actually did about it, which is more useful. Actors Access maintains a separate Size Card — wardrobe measurements — which is a distinct object from your résumé and can be attached optionally to commercial submissions. The industry solved actor-model by inventing a second document, not by cramming your inseam onto the acting résumé.
That is the honest answer. Your measurements are not a special skill and they are not a credit. They live in a size card, they get attached where they are needed, and your résumé stays a résumé.
Next: Chapter XI, and the most honest thing in this section — what actually happened to the paper résumé, the staple, and the trimming ritual everybody teaches and nobody in casting has ever been recorded demanding.
Want Will to Coach You Through It?
Reading is one thing. Working 1-on-1 with a working actor who booked Oppenheimer is another.