How to prep for an actor headshot session

I shoot a lot of actors. And almost every actor who walks through the door asks the same question two days before their session: “What do I do to prep?”

The honest answer is: less than you think. But the few things that do matter, matter a lot. Here’s everything I tell my clients, in the order they should think about it.

The week before: sleep is the actual job

This is the single biggest predictor of how your headshots will look, and almost nobody takes it seriously enough.

Your face holds the previous week. Not the previous night — the previous week. Puffiness under the eyes, the color of your skin, the way the muscles around your jaw sit — all of that is downstream of how you’ve been sleeping for the last 5–7 days.

So: starting one week out, treat sleep like part of the gig. 7–8 hours, real bedtime, phone out of the room. The night before doesn’t fix what the week before broke. And no, I can’t retouch your way out of three nights of 4-hour sleeps. I can soften things, but the muscle tension and the under-eye color come through.

The day before: water, no alcohol, easy on the salt

Drink water all day. Skin shows hydration almost immediately, especially under studio light.

Skip the drinks the night before. Even one or two will show up in your face the next morning — particularly around the eyes. If you genuinely can’t avoid an industry event, that’s fine, but plan the shoot for two days after, not the next morning.

Easy on the salt. Salty food the day before = puffy face the day of. Same with anything that messes with your sleep — caffeine after 2pm, big late dinners, intense workouts at 9pm.

This isn’t a wellness lecture. It’s just photo math.

Wardrobe: bring more than you think you need

Bring 5–7 options. Not 2. Not 12.

Why more than you’d guess: it’s much easier to narrow down on the day, when you can see how things actually look in the light we’re shooting in, than to wish you’d brought one more thing. Why not 12: more than that and you’ll spend the session changing instead of shooting.

What to bring:

Solid colors. Heathered fabrics are fine; loud patterns are not. Casting wants to see you, not your shirt.
Necklines that work for your features. Crews, V-necks, henleys, button-downs. Try things on before you pack — anything that makes you tug at your collar all day stays home.
A mix of formal and casual. If you read for both lawyers and baristas, bring both. If you only read for theater, lean into your authentic style.
Colors that match the work you’re going for. Earth tones for grounded characters, jewel tones for romantic leads, muted tones for indie/film. Black is fine; bright white almost never is (it blows out and pulls focus).
Layers. A jacket over a tee gives you two looks. A cardigan over a button-down gives you two more. Layers are how you get range without packing a suitcase.

Avoid: logos, busy stripes, anything that’s wrinkled, anything you haven’t worn in a year, anything that doesn’t fit today. If the buttons strain or the shoulders sag, leave it.

We’ll talk through your wardrobe on the pre-shoot call. Send me phone photos of your top 8 options a few days ahead and I’ll tell you which 5 to bring.

The one thing most actors overlook: looks, not poses

When most actors think “headshot prep,” they think about poses. They practice smiling in the mirror. They watch tutorials on chin angles.

Stop. None of that translates.

What you actually want to prep is looks — emotional starting points. A casting director needs to see what you’d bring to a scene, not how well you can fake a smile.

So before the shoot, think about 4–6 characters or roles you’d genuinely book. Not aspirational. The ones in your sweet spot. For each one, ask yourself:

What does that person want in the scene they’re auditioning for?
What are they trying not to show?
What’s the room they’re in?

We’ll use those internal states as starting points. I’ll feed you scenarios on set. You’ll respond as if they were real. That’s how we get headshots that look like a real human caught mid-thought instead of someone posing for the DMV.

If you bring nothing else to the shoot, bring four characters you know cold and want to read for. Everything else, I can work with.

Day of: the hour before is the most important

Eat something. Real food, not just coffee. A hungry actor reads as a tired actor.

Wash your face. Light moisturizer if you use it. Skip new skincare products you’ve never used before — today is not the day to find out you react to something.

Hair: clean, the way you wear it. Don’t get a fresh haircut three days before. Don’t try a new style. Casting wants to see what you actually look like when you walk in the room, not what you look like for one good week.

Makeup: if you wear it day-to-day, wear it. A touch more for camera (eyes especially), but not a transformation. If you don’t normally wear makeup, don’t start today.

Get there ten minutes early. Park, breathe, drink water. Don’t burst through the door at the exact start time still in traffic-mode.

On set: the secret is, there’s no secret

The actors who get the best results aren’t the ones who arrive with the most prep. They’re the ones who arrive unguarded — present, willing to play, willing to drop the polished version of themselves and just be there.

That’s harder than wardrobe. It takes more nerve than poses. It’s what separates a working headshot from a headshot that gets passed over.

That’s what we’re going to do together. The work I do is mostly about creating the conditions where that unguarded thing can happen. You showing up rested, hydrated, with a few characters in your back pocket and a willingness to play — that’s the whole gig.

The rest is just light.

Ready to book? Take a look at the booking page — actor headshot sessions start at $395, and standard sessions include a pre-shoot call where we walk through everything above in detail.

Got a question this didn’t cover? Email me. I read everything.