Many actors also model to fill in the time in between TV and commercials. Just the other day we had an incident where an actor/model accepted a $1200.00 print job with a top clothing manufacturer. Our model however made the mistake of overbooking himself, and in the process there was a domino effect which had very negative consequences for the model and client.

The client I will also add shoots weekly and sometimes twice a week for their website, so as you can imagine, we get a lot of work with this client. The model had booked a TV spot and was working all day the week before. When it came time for his booking with us, he called the day before to let us know late in the afternoon that he would not be able to work the next day, due to the fact that he had been booked on the TV show again. This is all understandable except when you as the model try to lie to our client and tell them that we the agent never told you about the shoot. That is where we draw the line. The model of course did know about the shoot, however he got his week overbooked and in an attempt to clean it up, he threw us under the bus.

Of course the other part of the problem is that once the model let us know he could not do the booking, he left us no time to replace the spot, causing us to scramble to find another model. A few great guys tried to get to the client, and sadly for them, they did not make it in time, as they booked someone else out of the agency. For us we still work with the client, but for our model they have flagged him as unreliable, and he is forever banned from working in their print department. And as you all know, people go to work at other companies, I can tell you this too, I have had clients that have moved on call me for models and tell me to make sure not to send “so and so”

. As a model or an actor, you have to know this, there is only one you, and if you create a bad taste in the clients mouth, that is really hard to fix. Our model did everything he could to fix the problem, he even wrote a letter of apology to the client, and they still did not budge. This story is not to bash the talent, it is to illustrate how one decision not to tell your agency what is going on can have serious ramifications.

Many people were affected by his lack of communication, including the client, their staff, the photography team , the stylists, the make up artists, the models that tried to rush out to replace him, his agency, and last but not least the talent. We as an agency have many people to choose from when faced with this type of situation with clients, and we can usually get a suitable replacement when enough time is permitted, however the talents reputation is forever tainted due to the fact that he did not honor his word or obligations. That is not something that people quickly forget, and the ripple effect of that down the road is still not known.

We tried everything in our power to let the client know that our model is normally reliable, but the damage was done. I only hope that our model learned a valuable lesson from this incident that he will take with him into the future. You know what they say, you see the same people on the way up, on the way back down. So, make sure not to screw up just to benefit yourself. You never know who is watching, and how it will affect your reputation in the long run.

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