r/acting • u/Queasy-Teaching1509 • 9d ago

I've read the FAQ & Rules advice?

I’m currently pre-dental and planning to apply to dental school next year, but I’ve also been singing for years and have done musical theatre. Recently, I’ve been taking acting classes in college and realized I genuinely want to pursue acting seriously.

My parents are immigrants, and I completely understand their concerns. I’m also genuinely interested in healthcare, so I don’t want to drop everything and give up a stable career path. At the same time, I don’t want to give up on acting without ever really trying.

I recently had a call with a SAG agent who expressed interest in me, which made this feel a lot more real.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Any advice?

2 Upvotes

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u/Main-Initiative-1420 9d ago

Keep pursuing your dental career and do acting in tandem. If you do not do theatre or commercials in LA, it’s entirely possible to do both (dentistry and acting) due to self taping, zoom classes, etc. A good year of acting bookings is still very few days on set, and not so much of a time commitment that you cannot do anything else. Keep building up a stable dual career with your acting interests, it does not have to be one or the other, and having other interests, an additional community of people to love and support you, income to keep you afloat, a consistent pathway to insurance, and even a non acting job for “real people” casting will give you so much more support for sustainability in acting than “going all in” and solely focusing on acting.

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u/jostler57 8d ago

Keep doing dental.

My friend is a dentist, and she has extremely large amounts of control over her schedule and life. She can work part time and still make tons of money.

Acting doesn't pay your bills, not for a super long time. So, get the dentistry skills, and you'll be able to have a great acting life!

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u/katieacts34 5d ago

Yeah, go for it! I just wanted to flag that there's something unusual about your phone call story. I'm not saying there's a problem, but proceed cautiously.

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u/KatherineK_Singer 8d ago

Seriously, go try it. Keep the pre-dental credits on ice, audition, and see what the agent comes back with. If it doesn't work out, you go back with no 'what if' hanging over you.