First things first: Do you want to become an Actor?

My school drama teacher told me, "If you can think of anything else besides acting that you can do for a living and be happy, do that." Now I'm not going to whine and tell you how tough it is to be an actor so I can feel like some creative martyr. Acting's a great job. The best, in fact. But I am glad my teacher told me what he did, because what acting isn't, is stable.

The major trials I find with being an actor, especially in the beginning, is the feeling, and the financial consequences, of rejection. If there was anything else I could have done for a living and been happy, I would've jumped ship long ago for something that paid more (at least more regularly). The money's good when you work, but you can go for months without getting anything. If you have regular bills to pay, this is a major problem. Your life turns into an exercise in debt management. If there were anything else I could have done, I would have given up after 20 unsuccessful auditions thinking, "I'm not good enough for this sh*t."

There are lots of other reasons to not choose acting as your career, and only one good reason to do it: you can't think of anything else you can do for a living and be happy. Well there's one other reason: your career was handed to you on a silver platter when you got picked out in a mall for a lead role in a huge feature film and you won an Oscar for it. We do hear of stories like that but the chances are akin to winning the lottery. Just like global economic demography, 1% of the actors make 95% of the money.

So the first thing I say when people ask me how to "get into acting" is: Find out how into it you really are. It's hard work. It takes a lot of dedication, perseverance, patience and luck.
Go take an acting class and see if you're craving more every time you leave. Imagine if you'd never ever get paid to act, would you still want to do it?