Playing Ages
Your playing age is not your real but how old you look.
For example, you might be 20 years old but look much older, say 30. Or much younger, just 15.
And when productions are casting, they do not care how old you actually are as an actor, but only how old you look on film.
How do you find your playing age?
Simple.
Ask people who don’t know how old you are, how old you are!
And then when you’ve asked a few people get the average and add/subtract 5 years either side.
So suppose you ask ten people and they say on average you look 30 years old. Then your playing age would be, say, 25-35.
Is it accurate?
No. It’s very approximate. If you look around 30 then you might well be able to go for acting jobs looking for a 22 year old and another looking for a 40 year old.
Add to this that productions often don’t really know exactly how old the character could be, you can easily go for roles 7 or 8 years older or younger than you really are.
Playing age vs Real age
When you apply for a job, you should never – unless you have to – give you real age or date of birth. This will just confuse casting directors and could put them off you before they’ve even seen you.
So stick to your playing age and remember to update it every few years!
on enCAST
You can set your playing ages on your enCAST profile:
- Login to the site
- Go to edit your profile
- Click on the BASIC INFO tab and you’ll see two fields for MINIMUM and MAXIMUM PLAYING AGE – note that you cannot have more than 15 years difference between these two ages or the profile will not save
