We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tim Realbuto a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Tim, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about your team building process? How did you recruit and train your team and knowing what you know now would you have done anything differently?

This is such an interesting question for an actor. All of us start alone with nothing more than a dream. Building your team when you’re an actor starts, first and foremost, with you. You are your business. You are the CEO as well as the product. It’s very weird to put yourself out there as a “product”, but that’s simply something you have to do in this particular business.

I also started writing when I got older, but I don’t find that it has quite as many “employees” as being an actor. I put employees in quotes because nobody particularly works for you like an employee, but it’s so important to build the perfect team, especially when you start getting some notoriety as an actor. With bigger responsibility comes more events, more attention and less time to do it all.

The first person you have to employ as an actor is a photographer. You need great headshots to even get your toe in the door, let alone your entire foot. I recommend finding a good photographer by doing your research. Look at their portfolios and websites. See if you like their work. Also, speak to fellow actors (especially ones who consistently get work). They are obviously doing something right, so ask their opinions about their favorite photographers.

Then you have to pick an agent and/or manager. This is pivotal. Your agent and manager literally represent you, not to mention your talent, your “product”, and anything you stand for. Yes, it seems hard to sign an agent or a manager, but please remember that it has to be a two-way street. You must feel comfortable talking to them and you absolutely must make sure they are the right fit for you. You are the product they are trying to sell. Don’t sign a major contract right away just because they are the first agent or manager to show interest in you. Don’t get into a contract you can’t get out of until you are 100% they are the right fit for you. They won’t sign you until they are sure. Why should it be different for you?

When you start doing more work, you may find it necessary to expand your team even more. I’m so lucky to have people I love and respect on my team. People who I absolutely trust. This includes my publicist, my assistants, my bodyguard, my entertainment lawyer… the list goes on and on.

There’s no particularly unconventional about the interview process. You just have to be 100% open and honest and hope they are as well.

And lastly, if I was just starting out today, the only thing differently I’d do is not put too much pressure on myself to succeed as quickly as possible. Everyone’s journey is different and that’s completely fine.

Pretty soon, you’ll have a complete team working for and, much more importantly, WITH you!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

This is a wonderful question. I’ve been at this since I’m 5 years old and I’m well into my 30’s now. I started out primarily as an actor, doing as much theatre as I could during my childhood. It was an incredible experience!

After I grew up a bit, I continued acting (it’s the one thing I think I could never give up), but after college (where I got my BFA in Acting), I decided it was time to write and compose music as well.

I co-wrote a musical called “Ghostlight” which I’m really proud of and had a great NYC run. I wrote a couple of plays. Then I started doing concerts and one-man shows. It was a way to get out the creativity I needed to when work wasn’t coming to me.

As much as I love theatre, I sort of left it a few years ago when I started getting film work. It was a very hard decision, and not really a conscious one, but I just had no time. I really miss it and plan on getting back on stage as soon as possible.

On film, I starred in the films “Yes” and “Bobcat Moretti” (opposite Vivica A. Fox, Taryn Manning and Academy Award nominee Sally Kirkland). I also have two other movies coming out in the next year, a horror film called “Werewolf Game” and the romantic comedy “In Fidelity.”

I’ve won numerous awards for my work on film, including the Hollywood Moving Pictures Award, the Los Angeles Independent Film Award, the IndieFest Award, and London’s Falcon Award. It’s been a blast attending award shows, but it’s honestly not what I’m most proud of.

I’m most proud of my work in the film “Bobcat Moretti” (currently playing in select cinemas and on VOD). It wasn’t my acting that made me most proud, but more the way I pushed myself. I achieved some things during the filming of the movie that I never thought possible, including losing 154 pounds for the role in the middle of shooting (we took off ten months). It’s the most weight an actor has ever lost for a film role and I’m very proud of that. Of course, I had an entire village of people helping me along the way, but it’s something I never thought I could do.

And if I can give any advice to somebody who wants to get into acting, I highly suggest doing as much theatre as you can. It’s an amazing training space. Get into the drama program in high school. Take music and art classes. Be as creative all the time as you can possibly be!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I love this question because this is something all of us do, especially actors! We compare ourselves to others. It’s a lesson that was very hard to unlearn. Of course it’s not an actual “lesson”, but it’s definitely something that is innately engrained into us.

We compare ourselves to others, especially successful people. We want their careers, we want their success, their talent, their looks, etc.

I was the biggest culprit of this and I simply don’t do it anymore. And I learned it the hard way. I found myself getting more and more depressed about the state of my career every day. It got so bad that I stopped auditioning, thinking I’d never be like the people I idolize or friends and peers who were getting ahead faster.

It wasn’t until I went to therapy and really opened up to friends and family about it that people finally snapped me back into a much more healthy reality. You can NEVER be someone else, because you are you! There’s only ONE of you in the entire world and you can bring something to a role that nobody else can. You cannot compare your career to other people’s careers because every path is different.

It wasn’t until this realization that I started buckling down, working harder, putting myself out there and getting more work.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

This is an interesting question. I picked it because I’m still trying to figure this part all out and I’m hoping that maybe we could all do that together.

I happen to have a very nice following on social media, but it wasn’t always that way. Far from it. I honestly didn’t even understand the importance of social media until my current publicist sat me down and told me how having a platform and a following actually gets you more work, and she is absolutely right!

However, getting to that stage is the hard part and I’ll tell you what I did to get it in the best way that I can (because in 2023, this is almost as important as anything else).

Luckily, my last film had some success and I grew my social media presence quite a bit in just the last year. My best advice is to stay active on social media. Be supportive, don’t be too negative, but at the end of the day, it’s most important to be yourself. This is obviously up to each individual person, but I found that being open and honest and relatable (all things that I really am) were super helpful. I talk openly about health issues, mental issues, depression, anxiety, etc. Not only do I genuinely love helping others in any way I can, but it makes your audience relate to you more, which means more word of mouth and more followers.

That being said, I couldn’t have done anything on social media without the support of my amazing publicist Sherry. She works so hard to get my name out there and help me with any social media issues I may have. So, if you feel the need and have the funds, I highly recommend getting a great publicist.

Lastly, do not spend money on buying followers or trying to get verified. It’s a waste and not the way to TRULY grow your following. My best advice is to be yourself and connect to your audience. And be patient! It’s not going to happen overnight, and once again, that’s more than okay.

Contact Info:

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• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TReallybuto

Image Credits
Getty Images (purchased by me). Michael Yeshion, headshot photography.