In LA, how do they advertise that they need actors?

The "movie company" or production company as it is commonly known hires a casting director or casting office. That casting office puts out the casting notices over various services like Breakdown Services which is a service that almost all agencies and management companies subscribe to. Agents and managers in turn submit their actors to the casting office and the CD (Casting Director) then decides who they will bring in for pre reads or auditions. There are other services like Now Casting, LA Casting, and Casting Frontier but the bottom line is this is how agents, managers and actors learn about project notices.

There are basically two ways a production company finds and hires actors.

1. The production company office sends casting notices to agents. The agents notify actors they represent who could possibly play each part.

2. The production company office places ads in the "trades" such as Daily Variety describing the parts .

The ads are often very specific about height, weight, hair/eye color, speaking voice, etc.

The production companies usually go through the various talent agencies first, then take out ads in the trade papers.

They contact agents on what kind of person they're looking for and if an agent has a person that matches their description, then they call the person that appears like the person the company is looking for and then they audition for the part.