Kym Jackson, Author

Kym Jackson has lived and worked as an actor in Hollywood since 2004. From 2004 to 2007, she had numerous day jobs in various aspects of the film industry to support her acting career. She worked as a PA, in development and financing representing a substantial equity investor, as a production co-ordinator and UPM, as a casting assistant and casting director, and as purchasing co-ordinator for a post-production company. During this time, Kym's work lead her to attend Sundance, Cannes, AFM, and several other major film markets and film festivals.

While working on the "other side" of the camera, Kym spoke with more and more actors from Australia who were arriving in LA or who had been in LA for a while and didn't know why they weren't making progress. It became apparent to her that there was a substantial divide between the knowledge and information held by the filmmakers in the industry and the limited industry awareness of the actors trying to become a part of it. She found herself relaying the same information in answer to the same common questions from one actor to the next and realized that this information needed to be written down.

The plan was to create a handout for new actors coming to Hollywood that could be passed to new arrivals. As the document grew, it became so substantial that the only logical option was to turn it into a book. A textbook on working and acting in Hollywood for Australians.

In 2008, Kym's acting career began to gain momentum, which removed her need for a "day job", and she spent her downtime making notes and doing research for the text. She attended over two hundred casting workshops, discussing with casting directors and their associates what they felt actors needed to know about the industry. She sat with producers, directors, agents, managers and many other industry members probing to find out what it was that actors were missing from the big picture. The resulting literature is a comprehensive text that explains everything an actor should know about living and working in Hollywood.

More information available on IMDB.