Talent Agent

A talent agent, or booking agent, is a person who finds jobs for actors, authors, film directors, musicians, models, producers, professional athletes, writers and other people in various entertainment businesses. An agent also defends, supports and promotes the interest of his/her clients. Agents cannot produce their own shows due to conflict of interest. A talent agent must be familiar with their clients. An agent has to know what kind of work the client can and cannot do in order to match them with various jobs.

Having an agent is not required, but does help the artist in getting jobs. In many cases casting directors, or other businesses, go to talent agencies to find artists they are looking for. The agent is paid a percentage of the star's earnings (typically 10%). Agents sometimes will be referred to as "10 percenters." There are different regulations that govern different types of agents that are established by artist's unions and the legal jurisdiction in which the agent operates. There are also professional organizations that license talent agencies. Since the decline in viewership in theaters, from the 1950s to 1960s, this caused a monumental shift in how studios would produce films and thus reducing the cost of exclusive and expensive actors.

Actors and actresses were working for the studios but were not owned by one major studio entity and so were able to work on within their time and with other studios. Because of this, agents were now seen as a necessity instead of an option. Agents now became third parties that negotiated between studios and clients, this making their services imperative between each party. Since talent agencies are working with lucrative contracts, all talent agencies must be licensed under special sections of the California Labor Code, which calls an agent a "person or corporation who engages in the occupation of procuring, offering, promising, or attempting to procure employment for artist or artists."