Skills:

Common Sense, Works well with children, animals and other people, Cooking, Yoga Practitioner, Running, Biking, Hiking, Basketball, Billiards, Swimming, Ping Pong, Weightlifting.

Thats all I Have that I do WELL when it comes to showable skills. I hear that you do NOT put it on your skills unless you are good at it. I put down NY accent and Eastern European accent, but I removed it because I am not an expert.
I put Common Sense because it IS true, but I dont want to sound arrogant or snobby about it.

Opinions, suggestions? (I am still learning and I have searched the site before)

Anything basic I can add that I am missing, but can be universal and legit? (i.e. walking?)

you dont have to be expert level at your skills, but you better be able to demonstrate them if asked.

for example, if you can ride a horse, you write "horseback riding". but if you were competition level, you'd write something like "competition level horseback riding" or "expert horseback rider" or whatever makes sense for horseback riding.

to continue, you wrote "cooking". are you a master chef, or just good at cooking?

you can put anything that you can demonstrate at the drop of a hat, if asked.

personally, i think listing "common sense" and "walking" is just immature and unprofessional. but that's just me.

if you want people to laugh or to take a second look, put something you can really actually do, even though it's something you'd probably never ever be asked to do in a project.

examples:
can burp the ABCs backwards- granted, you will probably never do this in a project, but if you can do it at the drop of a hat, it's one of those skills that if you've got a lighthearted CD, they will ask you to do it in the audition, and it'll be funny, and you'll all share a laugh.

sheep sheering- i think back to one of my first real acting teachers. mcdonough. he was irish. i only remember bits and pieces of this story, but i remember he went to ireland and while there, learned to sheer sheep. not expert level or anything, just learned how to do it. he came back and almost immediately after, booked some major project (national commercial? feature film? i forget) sheering sheep.

if they want someone with professional level skills, they'll ask for it. i hate to bring up scuba diving again, but i am PADI certified, which means i did the studying and took the test and did the practical tests (as opposed to people who go on cruises, get the 15 minute "how to" lecture then go)

about 2-3 weeks ago, a notice went up on AA for certified scuba diviers. but they wanted people with a much higher certification than mine. i believe they also wanted someone with shark certification (which is a whole other certification process). so i didn't submit.

just view other actor's resume's online. you'll find examples of what you can or can't list.

but don't list stuff for the sake of listing stuff. that's just annoying to whomever is reading your resume.

Common sense is not a skill anymore than intelligence is a skill.

Horseback riding, tennis, juggling 3 balls..etc..these are skills. A skill is something that needs to be specific. Walking is not a skill. Neither is eating or breathing. A skill is also something not everyone knows how to do. Like fire breathing. If you look at other actor's resumes, you will get the idea.

A skill is something that takes training.

Thanks for the reply. I used the walking as an example, but youre right. Probably sounds immature.

Just wanted something to 'pop' off the page, but it might just 'pop' in the Agent's garbage can. . . .

I will take off the common sense and I will add the accents back on.

With cooking, I am above intermediate, hehe...so yeah, not EXPERT, but good enough, so I understand that. I read that rather long back and forth with the scuba post so I guess thats why I wanted to bring it up again. THANKS!

Skills do take training, thanks amo37


Off to go shark sheering with my skydiving licence...