Film, TV (television), theatre, voice and commercials. Good money per day of work, and most people do not get many days.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $50,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $35,000 at the lower end to about $83,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
Up to 4 years after high school, on the usual route.
$1,500 to $45,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no licence to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Limited demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$50,000
Lower end
$35,000
Upper end
$83,000
Read this range carefully. Job Bank's national median is $24.13 an hour, about $50,000 a year if you worked full-time hours all year. Almost nobody does. Acting is paid by the day or the contract, so these numbers describe the rate for time on set or on stage, not what a typical performer takes home in a year.
A handful of paid days
Most performers earn only part of their income from acting
Union rates are decent. Booking enough work to fill a year is the hard part. Nearly every working actor in Canada has a flexible second income: teaching, serving, voice work, or a day job that lets them leave for an audition.
Session fee plus use fees
You are paid again each time the ad keeps running
A national commercial pays a fee for running the ad, not just for the shooting day. This is why so many stage actors chase commercial auditions.
Roughly, all in
$1,500 to $45,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
There is no licence to buy, so the low end is somebody who skips theatre school: headshots, a few classes, and the joining fee for ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) once union work comes. The high end is a full theatre school or degree program plus headshots and coaching in the first couple of years. What the numbers hide is that classes and new headshots keep costing money for your whole career, not just at the start, and the work is irregular.
Getting into the room is cheap. Staying ready between jobs is what costs money, year after year.
Film and TV (television)
Covered by ACTRA (the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists), the national union for recorded media, with more than 30,000 members.
Theatre, opera and dance
Covered by the Canadian Actors' Equity Association, the union for live performance.
Voice work
Animation, video games, audiobooks and ads. Steadier than it looks and you can do it from a booth.
Background and stand-in work
Low pay, but it is how many people get their first union credits.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
There is no qualification. There is training, then credits, then an agent, then a union card.
Perform in anything
From now
School plays, community theatre, student films, improv. Nobody starts by being discovered.
Training
3 to 4 years
A conservatory such as the National Theatre School of Canada in Montreal, founded in 1960, or a university degree such as the Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting at Toronto Metropolitan University. Both take you by audition.
Get an agent
Varies, often years
Agents submit you for auditions you cannot access alone. They take a percentage and cost nothing up front. Anyone asking for money to represent you is a scam.
Build union credits
1 to 5 years
Work your way from background and non-union projects to union contracts.
Keep auditioning
Forever
There is no point where this ends. Working actors audition constantly between jobs.
Drama
Stage time and feedback, which is the whole training.
English
Reading a script for meaning is the core skill.
Music and dance
Musical theatre needs all three, and movement training shows in everything.
Business or accounting
You will be self-employed from day one, with expenses and taxes to track.
Anyone can call themselves an actor. What actually gates the paid work is union membership. ACTRA (the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) covers film, TV (television) and recorded media, and the Canadian Actors' Equity Association, independent since 1976, covers theatre, opera and dance. You normally start as an apprentice or permittee, build credits on union productions, then become a full member. Non-union work exists, without union minimum rates or protections.
Most Quebec actors train in a CEGEP (public college) theatre program or a conservatory, and Quebec has its own performers' union, the UDA (Union des artistes).
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
No set courses are required for the theatre programs. School plays and drama classes help you prepare the scenes you will need for auditions.
Interprétation théâtrale DEC (Diploma of College Studies)
3 to 4 years
The acting program (561.C0), entered by audition. At Collège Lionel-Groulx and Cégep de Saint-Hyacinthe in French, and at John Abbott College in English as Professional Theatre Acting.
Or a conservatory
3 years
The Conservatoire d'art dramatique de Montréal (the Montreal drama conservatory) runs a 3 year acting program in French. You need a DEC, or must be 21, and pass an audition.
Or the National Theatre School
3 years
Based in Montreal, with a 3 year acting program in English and one in French. The English program takes 10 to 14 students a year. You must be 18 by 31 December.
Join a performers' union
As paid work comes
Quebec recognizes the UDA, ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists), which covers English-language screen work, and Canadian Actors' Equity Association.
Collège Lionel-Groulx
Two audition rounds in February, $38 to apply, at most 22 students a year. 4 years straight from high school, 3 if you already have college credits.
John Abbott College
Apply through SRAM (the Montreal regional admissions service), then you are invited to audition. Taught in English.
Conservatoire d'art dramatique de Montréal
Scenes are performed in French. Classes in acting for the camera run through all 3 years.
National Theatre School
Two monologues, one classical and one contemporary, then a callback workshop in Montreal. Auditions tour Canadian cities each spring.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Self-tape technique
Most first-round auditions are now filmed at home. Lighting, sound and framing are part of your job.
Accents and dialects
Canadian actors play American roles constantly. Dialect work opens scripts to you.
Stage combat and movement
Certified combat training gets you onto action and classical productions.
Singing
Musical theatre is one of the few places with long contracts and steady pay.
A home audition setup
A neutral backdrop, a light, a decent microphone. A few hundred dollars.
Improv training
Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal all have strong scenes, and it feeds into comedy and commercial work.
A trade or teachable skill
Something flexible that pays between contracts without tying you to a schedule.
A driver's licence
Call times are early and sets are rarely near transit.
Animation, video games, audiobooks and advertising all need voices, and the work is booked from a small home booth as often as a studio. It is less visible than screen acting, the auditions are quicker, and a good voice reel can keep paying while you chase on-camera roles.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Auditions arrive with a day or two of notice. You learn the sides, film a self-tape, send it, and usually hear nothing. In between you take class, work your other job, and meet people. On a shoot week the rhythm flips: a 5am call, hours in a trailer waiting, a few intense minutes on camera, then more waiting. Theatre is steadier, with six days of rehearsal a week and then eight shows a week for a run.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
ACTRA (the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) Toronto represents more than 15,000 performers, about half of the union's more than 30,000 members across Canada.
ACTRA (the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) has spoken for performers since 1943, back when the work was radio. Today it has nine branches across the country.
Legitimate agents in Canada are paid a percentage of what you earn, after you earn it. Any agency asking for an upfront fee, or requiring you to buy headshots from them, is taking your money, not finding you work.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Performing first, then the rest of the field. See every career in creative.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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