Actor special skills for your acting resume are the skills you list after your work experience and training.
Special skills usually go at the bottom of your resume or in your profile in casting platforms like Actors Access, Casting Networks, Backstage, Now Casting, NYCastings.com, Casting Frontier, and Playbill (for theatre actors).
Here is an example from a resume:
You list the skill, and some people recommend you accompany it by your level of ability (intermediate, advanced, fluent, etc). I've also heard other people say, please don't list it if you're a beginner—assume that the skills you're listing are things you're experienced with and can perform comfortable.
Either way…
In this post, I’ve listed tons of examples of actor special skills you can include in your resume.
Examples of Special Skills for Acting Resumes
Here’s a list of special skills for your acting resume to get you started.
Please don’t just copy and paste these special skills onto your resume! Your relationships are everything in this industry, so make sure what you list is accurate and truthful.
Sports Special Skills List
- Team sports (badminton, basketball, softball, baseball, soccer, hockey, volleyball, roller hockey, cricket, rugby, football, racquetball, tennis)
- Track & Field (hurdles, sprinting, long jump, pole vault, shot put, discus)
- Archery
- Swimming
- Diving
- Cycling (BMX, freestyle, jumps, mountain biking, unicycle, etc)
- Combat training, stage combat
- Skiing
- Bowling
- Martial arts
- Rock climbing
- Horseback riding
- Roller skating
- Ice skating
- Kick boxing
- Fencing
- Body building
- Skateboarding
- Surfing
- Firearms training, weapons training
- Billiards
- Darts
- Hacky sack
- Yoga
There are obviously many other physical skills other than the examples in the list above.
Rule of thumb: if it’s an actual skill that you’ve trained for and developed, then list it. I wouldn’t list it if it’s something you tried once in high school but never touched again.
Vehicle Special Skills List
We can split hairs over whether these are vehicle or sport skills, but here are a few ideas:
- Say if you have a driver's license
- Say if you have a commercial driver's license (trucks)
- License to operate heavy machinery
- Motorcycling
- Boating (kayaking, canoeing)
- Piloting a plane
- Flying a helicopter
- Snowmobiling
- Cycling (BMX, freestyle, jumps, mountain biking, unicycle, etc)
Performance Special Skills List
- Dance (ballet, ballroom, tap, breakdance, tango, jazz, etc)
- Choreography
- Voiceover acting
- Gymnastics
- Balloonist
- Cheerleading
- Juggling
- Clowning
- Mime
- Ventriloquism, puppetry
- Magic tricks
- Stand up comedy
- Improv comedy and improvisation
- Baton twirling
- Rope tricks
- Acrobatics
Music Special Skills List
- Singing (indicate vocal range and genre if applicable)
- Musical instrument
- Beatbox
- Rapping
- Body percussion
- Conducting
- Musical theatre
- Playing in a band (blues, country, latin, etc)
Language Special Skills List
- Fluency in foreign languages
- Accents/Dialects
I’ve heard casting directors caution against putting a dialect that you can only do after intense training and practice—actors can get called out to “do an accent” on the spot on a new text they haven’t practiced with before.
Other Special Skills
- Braces
- Animal skills (training, working with animals, riding)
- Specialized hobbies such as knitting
Do Not List These As Special Skills
- Your personality traits or “hits” (outgoing, tough)—these are the types of things you'd pitch to an agent
- Preferences, such as “loves to try new things”, or “solo world traveler”
- Hobbies that don't have a clear performance related skills, such as cooking or reading
- Job or career labels, such as “teacher”. Instead, list the actual skill that's involved with your career
- Anything where, if asked to do it, you wouldn't be able to
- Anything that's not a skill
Actors Special Skills Tips
Here are a few things to remember:
Be ready to deliver.
Overall, make sure you’re truthful and accurate about what you put down. The special skills on your resume should be things that are truly skills you can do without being coached into it—not just things you’ve tried once or things you’re willing to do.
Put the most impressive stuff first (or the stuff you want to be cast for).
Whenever I see someone read my actor resume, they comment on the first skill I have listed (it’s standup comedy). I guess being a standup comedian is more rare than other things like having some basic dance training, so it seems like it’s just better at making someone interested.
I keep standup comedy first on my special skills list both because it seems to make me stand out and because I want to work in comedic roles. People are short on time, so they often read the first thing on the list and then just skim. Make it count!
On casting platforms, think like a searcher.
I had a discussion with the support team from Backstage.com. I was playing around with creating a profile and I realized that “English” was a special skill.
I mean, of course English is a special skill on a globally used platform.
But I wouldn’t have thought to list it on my resume because I am a native English speaker and it’s not a special skill for me.
When I asked about adding “English” as a special skill, the support team from Backstage told me this:
I’m not sure, but I imagine this applies to other platforms as well. If a searcher is going narrow their search by selecting a filter for “Language: English”, I definitely want to be in those results.
Think of the search results in which you want to appear—it probably won’t hurt to add those parameters on these types of platforms as special skills, just in case.
Other Resources
Here's a bunch of professional resume examples to find inspiration as you get started.
Any Other Actor Special Skills?
What special skills for acting resumes am I leaving out? Feel free to add your ideas in the comments below!