The best way to start is to use local opportunities and build on them. Local and regional theater experience may help in obtaining work in New York or Los Angeles. Actors and directors try to work their way up to major productions. Intense competition, however, ensures that few succeed. Formal dramatic training or acting experience is generally necessary, although some people enter the field without it.
Most people take college courses in theater, arts, drama, and dramatic literature.
Many experienced actors pursue additional formal training to learn new skills and improve old ones. Actors often research their character's lifestyle and history, as well as information about the location of the story. Sometimes actors learn a foreign language or develop an accent to make their character more realistic. Training can be obtained at dramatic arts schools in New York and Los Angeles, and at colleges and universities throughout the country that offer bachelor or higher degrees in dramatic and theater arts. College drama curriculums usually include courses in liberal arts, stage speech and movement, directing, playwriting, play production, design, and the history of the drama, as well as practical courses in acting.