Actress Racquel Bailey spent a few thousand dollars to take out billboards where she thought director Tyler Perry might see them and hire her. In reply, Perry posted this on the 'net. The punctuation is his…
Auhhh…. soooooo…… here's the deal. This is not the way to get my attention if you're looking for a role in one of my shows. Please DON'T DO THIS, SAVE YOUR MONEY!! This is the third time that someone has done this. PLEASE STOP! To audition is FREE!! I'm sure you can use that money for a better purpose.
I love that you want to work with me, and I love that you invest in yourself. But when you do things like this it puts my team on high alert and makes me look at you sideways. I know the message that you want to send is a positive one, but this comes across as the opposite.
Again, the best way to work for me is to AUDITION and it;s FREE! We post breakdowns all the time for actors. JUST COME AND AUDITION. And by the way, you were great in THE NIGHT OF! It was my favorite show a couple years ago. I ALREADY SAW YOU!! So just audition and keep your money!!
Again, I appreciate your effort, but that's not the way to work for me. God bless you dreamer. I have no doubt you will make it one day!!
Actors occasionally try stunts like this and while I'm sure there's some example somewhere of them working, I think they do more harm than good to careers. The folks in hiring positions are more often going to think, "Gee, if you have to resort to tricks like this, you must not be very good."
I knew an actress once who looked an awful lot like Goldie Hawn. When they were casting the Private Benjamin TV series, based on the movie which starred Ms. Hawn, my friend went to enormous (for her) expense to try and get an audition. She paid a photographer to snap a great photo of her wearing an army helmet, looking very much like a key poster art of Goldie in the film. Then she paid even more money to Variety and Hollywood Reporter to run it as a full page ad. Under the pic, it said, "Casting Private Benjamin? Why not me?"
She got zero response from the show. Nothing. Not a call. Not an inquiry. A few weeks later, it was announced that Lorna Patterson would play the lead.
A few years later, my friend was up for a part in a movie. The casting director looked at her and asked, "You weren't the girl who took that ad out trying to get seen for Private Benjamin?" My friend admitted she was.
The casting director said, "Well, you blew it. We had you on the list to come in and read for the part and then the producers or someone saw that ad and said, 'Let's skip her.'" It just seemed like something a real amateur would do."
My friend probably would not have gotten the part if they had had her in. She had experience but probably not enough to star in a network sitcom. But the point is that that ad turned a long shot into a longer shot. A friend told her, "To get a job, you need talent and a good agent. What you did was pay a lot of money to make show business think you had neither."
I thought this was a valuable lesson…for writers and a lot of other professions, as well. Let your work speak for you. It was Racquel Bailey's talent that impressed Tyler Perry, not her billboard. Because anyone who can scrape up the money can buy a billboard.