JOIN BROOD

An agency is always open to taking on new clients, so if you wonder whether our ‘books’ are ‘open’, then the answer is yes.

We receive multiple applications every day of the year, and only ever sign a tiny percentage of those who apply, so please read below to see whether you are the type of artiste we would be interested in representing. This is who we like to hear from.

• Established actors looking to change representation and perhaps enjoy being with a smaller, more family-like boutique agency.
• Early career actors with a few good professional credits.
• International actors who speak excellent English, have name-recognition profile in their own countries, a temporary place to live in the UK and ease of travelling here.
• Teenage actors who have been acting since childhood, have finished school and have not yet decided whether to move on to drama school or university.
• Actors with something very unusual to offer, such as in their looks or specialist skills.

As a rule, we are not able to offer representation to the following.

• International actors without a UK passport or Settled Status in the UK.
• International actors without name-recognition at home.
• Students still at drama school or in any other full-time education.
• Performers who have received no professional drama training.
• Those who have only worked as Extras or Walk-ons.
• New graduates without professional credits.
• Amateur actors.
• The under 16’s.

In addition to representing trained actors, we are always interested to hear from you if you are a good actor, but also have professional-level skills in Musical Theatre, or individually in singing, musical instruments and dance, or perhaps have a slightly separate career as a presenter, model, TV or social media personality, comedian or magician, for example.

In order to apply, you must have an active Spotlight membership, recent professional photos and a recent showreel.

HOW TO APPLY

Please email us at broodapplication@aol.com.

Your email can be fairly brief, and should include active links to your Spotlight page, your website and other social media. If relevant, please also include your work status visa details. If we want to know any more, we will ask you.

PROCEDURE FOLLOWING APPLICATION

As we read every email sent, and look at all good showreels, it takes a while to come back to you. Don’t worry if you do not hear from us for several weeks. We eventually reply to all serious applications.

You will receive one of three responses. We will express interest in you, ask for more information, or (unfortunately), say we can’t take things further.

Throughout the history of Brood, we have auditioned most of our clients. If we are interested in you and do not already know you from your body of work, we are likely to ask for an audition video, which will be like a slightly longer version of the audition ‘self-tapes’ everyone has been having to make in recent years. If we like the video, we will then arrange a meeting with you. All such meetings have been on Zoom since 2020. If we are both happy to proceed after the meeting, a representation offer will be made.

We look forward to hearing from you. Best of luck with your application.

FAQs

I am still at drama school, and we are encouraged to write to agents before we graduate. Do you want to hear from me?    We would prefer to hear from you once you have graduated and have some credits and a full showreel.

I didn’t go to drama school, but I am a good actor. Are you interested?    We want to represent any talented performer regardless of their background. If your CV and showreel are good, where you trained or didn’t train is irrelevant to us.

I would like to approach you, but I need discretion.    Many agents know each other, but we are all aware of the sensitivity of changing representation, so we never discuss who approaches us.

Will you get me more auditions and jobs than my current/previous agent?    Whether you get auditions depends on what is on your CV, and the quality of your photos and showreel. We can certainly work with you to improve your marketing materials. Whether you get jobs depends on how well you perform in a live or ‘self-tape’ video audition.

I have had a career gap and want to get back into the profession. Will you help me?    If the gap has been more than a couple of years, the chances are that your photos and showreel are out of date. The first task before an agent can work with you is for you to update these materials.

I don’t see anyone like me among your clients. Will you be interested in me?    Yes, very likely, if you have a good CV and photos/showreel. We always want to widen client diversity.

I am still in full-time education but want to be an actor. May I write to you?    Please contact us once you have left school/college/university, and only if you are an experienced actor with a professional showreel.

I am an actor with an EU passport. Can I work in the UK? Shall I write to you?    If you have no name-recognition profile in your own country and don’t have a British or Irish passport, or UK Settled Status, it is not easy for you to find work in the UK, so we are unlikely to express interest, sorry.

I am an international actor. Can I work in the UK?    Please see above. You need to have name-recognition profile in your own country and/or a British or Irish passport, or UK Settled Status, to be able to work here as an actor.

I applied to you many weeks ago and have had no reply yet.    Sometimes we can reply more quickly than a month, but it can take longer. If you have not received a negative response, you are still being considered.

I have written to you and now another agent has offered me representation and their offer is time-limited, so I have to accept it.    We don’t rush to choose our clients and we never put an actor under pressure to commit themselves to us. Ask yourself why that agent is giving deadlines.

I am getting rejected from every agency I have applied to. Will you take me on?    It is important to remember that an agency is a business and that their actors are their ‘products’ who they are trying to sell to the industry. Multiple rejections may mean that your CV needs more credits on it, or that your photos or showreel are not strong enough. For us to sign a new client, we must be fairly sure that they have something the industry wants.

What is this TPF you talk about?    We believe that in order to be successful in our industry you need three qualities: Talent, meaning you must be good at what you do, Personality, meaning you have to be open and friendly, and Focus, meaning that your career must take precedence over all of normal everyday life’s distractions. Missing one of these qualities may result in an unsuccessful career.

I haven’t read any of the above and don’t have what is required, shall I apply?    No.

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION STATEMENT

We have all become more focused in recent times, on issues of prejudice. Our industry has been leading the way on diversity in casting for a few years now, but there is never any place for complacency.

It is important to state that if you do not belong to a community which suffers prejudice, you can never completely understand what that prejudice feels like, so when someone tells you they are feeling discriminated against, or when a sensitive situation develops where someone present could be feeling discrimination, always take matters seriously, listen and be supportive.

All agencies should have a diverse roster, and by ‘diverse’ we mean varied and different. Each client should have something that makes them a bit unique. Collectively, a diverse roster makes an agency more interesting and appealing to the industry. We want to look after as wide a range of talent as possible but will never choose a client just because they are or are not, part of any particular identity group. We believe that everyone deserves an equal chance at success and exposure to any available opportunities. If we say that all clients are treated equally, that is not strictly true, because people are people, and everyone should be treated as an individual, by being sensitive to individual needs and experiences. But what is true is that we are open, fair and honest with everyone and aim to protect and promote all clients with equal energy.

Despite the rhetoric, our industry is not perfect. Even in 2022 there are more roles for men than women, casting is not always open, with some roles only being advertised to a small clique, famous names can be over-exposed, and the power to make or break an artiste’s career can lie in the hands of a small number of people, who arguably have too much power.

Brood will continue to do all we can to promote the cause of openness and democracy in our industry so that everyone is considered equally for work, based on talent alone, regardless of where they trained, who represents them and who they are personally connected with. In these tricky times, all of us have an opportunity to show that we are in it together, whether we are actors, directors, agents, casting directors, or producers. This is the time to be mutually supportive and to give everyone a chance to be heard. That is everyone, without prejudice of any kind.