Career Explorer Arts, media and sport
Changing shape
Actors
Play parts in stage, television, radio, video, or film productions, or other settings for entertainment, information, or instruction. Interpret serious or comic role by speech, gesture, and body movement to entertain or inform audience. May dance and sing.
Changing faster than most: more resilient than 34% of the 831 careers we score. AI exposure is moderate (the Bureau of Labor Statistics rates it moderate), and US jobs are projected to change by 0.0% by 2035, slower than average. The work leans on creative vision.
AI can do many of the tasks, and hiring is expected to grow slower than average or to shrink. The job is likely to change, so build the human parts of it.
- Median pay (2025)
- Not published
- Job growth to 2035
- 0.0%
- Openings a year
- 6,300
- People doing it (2025)
- 67,500
- Usual route in
- Some college, then long on-the-job training
Where people already use AI for this work
- Study details of artistic productions
- Perform athletic activities for fitness, competition, or artistic purposes
- Promote products, services, or programs
From Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025).
Work AI rarely helps with
- Present arts or entertainment performances
What the work looks like
- Attend auditions and casting calls to audition for roles.
- Work closely with directors, other actors, and playwrights to find the interpretation most suited to the role.
- Portray and interpret roles, using speech, gestures, and body movements, to entertain, inform, or instruct radio, film, television, or live audiences.
- Study and rehearse roles from scripts to interpret, learn and memorize lines, stunts, and cues as directed.
- Collaborate with other actors as part of an ensemble.
From O*NET 31.0, US Department of Labor.
What the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects
- Fewer of these jobs, as fewer domestic television, movies, and live theater are produced and as artificial intelligence (AI) reduces the number of commercial advertising opportunities otherwise available to actors.
Careers using similar strengths, with a stronger outlook
- Media and communication workers, all otherGrows with AI, Index 44, +3.9%
- Merchandise displayers and window trimmersHuman edge, steady, Index 72, +2.7%
- Architectural and civil draftersGrows with AI, Index 46, +5.2%
- Floral designersHuman edge, steady, Index 48, -5.6%
Also known as: Actress, Comedian, Community Theater Actor, Voice Actor, Entertainer, Film Actor, Motion Capture Actor, Role Player.
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Sources: US Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections 2025 to 2035; O*NET 31.0; Microsoft Research (2025); Anthropic Economic Index (2026); Eloundou and colleagues (Science, 2024); Felten, Raj and Seamans (2023). How we score. Updated 12 October 2026.