Actor hire in Australia: the complete guide

Most people who need to hire an actor are not putting on a play. They are running a training day where managers have to practise a difficult conversation, or a conference that needs a character in the foyer, or a video shoot that needs someone who can hit a mark and deliver a line without sounding like they are reading it.

That makes this one of the odder categories on the site, because almost none of it is party entertainment. Rates come straight from the actors' own listings below. The rest of this page is about how to brief the job properly, because a vague brief is why actor bookings go wrong more often than any other kind.

Corporate roleplay is the biggest slice. An actor plays the angry customer, the underperforming staff member or the patient in a medical scenario, and stays in character while a trainee practises on them. Done well it is the most useful hour in any training program, because people behave differently when the person opposite them is genuinely difficult rather than a colleague reading from a script.

Then there is video and brand work: presenters, product demonstrations, internal communications, safety films. Live character work at events, where an actor holds a persona for a few hours among guests. And forum theatre and scenario work, where a short scene is played out and the audience is invited to intervene and change what happens. Each of these needs a different kind of performer, and a good CV for one is not a good CV for another.

A roleplay actor has to stay in character under pressure while quietly managing the exercise. They need to escalate when a trainee is coasting and ease off when someone is genuinely struggling, and then step out of character and give useful feedback about how the conversation felt from the other side. That last part is a facilitation skill and plenty of very good stage actors cannot do it.

It also takes stamina. A full training day might be a dozen repetitions of the same scenario with a different person each time, and each one has to feel like the first for the person in front of them. When you are reading profiles, look for actors who name this work directly rather than listing general credits and hoping.

The scenario itself, written out. Who the character is, what they want, how hard they should push, and what the trainee is meant to practise. How many repetitions, over how many hours. Whether the actor gives feedback afterwards and in what format. Whether they need industry-specific vocabulary, because a hospital scenario and a construction site scenario need different homework.

For video and event work: the location, the hours, wardrobe, whether the material is scripted or improvised, and where the footage will be used. That last one matters commercially. An actor's fee for an internal training video and the same day's work in a national advertisement are not the same number, and usage is the reason. Be straight about it in the first message.

Most of this work is priced by the half day or the day rather than by the hour, because a two-hour roleplay session still takes a morning once travel and preparation are counted. Preparation is real: reading a scenario pack, learning a company's vocabulary, rehearsing a scene. A quote that seems high for the performance time usually reflects that.

Two things sit outside the performance fee and should be agreed in writing. Usage, if anything is being filmed, and script or scenario development if you want the actor to help write it rather than just perform it. Both are ordinary requests. They are just not included by default.

Showreels are useful but they show an actor at their most polished, which is not always what you need. For roleplay, a short unedited clip of them in a scenario is worth more than a highlights reel. For presenting, you want to hear them talk to a camera at length rather than in cuts.

Be honest with yourself about the brief before you look at anybody. If the job needs a fifty-year-old who reads as a site foreman, the most talented performer in the country is the wrong booking if they read as twenty-five. Casting is matching, not ranking, and the enquiry is free so ask two or three and see who responds with the sharpest questions about your scenario.