How do you go about becoming an actress (from the UK)?

If you are serious about wanting to act, you should start by reading every play you can get hold of, reading books, and going to a theatre club or stage group and learning everything you can. Nothing you are taught at school is a waste of time – you never know what is going to be really useful for you as an actor, and even stuff like history, geography, science, cooking, maths, etc, will probably come in handy when you least expect it. Actors need to be very intelligent, able to understand loads of subjects, well-read, for example able to read Shakespeare and so on. It’s no good reading a script if you can’t understand what your character and the others are talking about! Work hard at all your school subjects and get as many GCSEs as you can so you can get onto a college course in Drama or Performing Arts, with extras like Psychology, English, Sociology, etc. After A Levels, you’ll be able to apply to get into a drama school, although these are all very hard to get into. Up to 4,000 applicants apply for 24 places, in each school, every year. You will need to be able to work on stage as well as to camera. Singing is often required, so join a choir or try to afford lessons somehow. Dance is also useful. It’s also essential to have some other skill which you can use to earn money in between acting jobs – you’ll need it! Bar work, office work, shop work – that would do, but ideally train in some job you can work freelance so you’ll be able to take time off whenever you need to for auditions and the occasional paid acting job. Make sure you really enjoy it too, as you’ll spend more time doing than that acting! Most actors don’t get more than 2 or 3 weeks’ paid acting work a year. You are looking at years of hard work, very little glamour, terrible rates of pay – if any – doing odd jobs just to pay the bills while you’re auditioning for acting work. It’s not something you should even be considering unless you’re totally passionate about acting and can’t imagine doing anything else. You’ll probably never be famous, or make much money, but if it’s what you really want, go for it. If it’s just a nice idea because it sounds fun and exciting and so on, forget it. Good luck!

Join a local drama club first and see how you get on.