The Sims 4 Actor Career Guide

Traits and Aspirations for Actors

If you know that you want a sim to be an actor, there are a few traits and aspirations you can give them in Create-a-Sim that will benefit their career.

The Master Actor/Master Actress aspiration is a natural choice for an actor, offering milestones that can easily be completed over the course of your career. It rewards the trait World-Renowned Actor/World Renowned Actress, which means you can never fail at any acting action again. The World-Famous Celebrity aspiration also makes sense, as you will naturally earn some fame as you progress through your career, but it doesn’t offer any special acting perks.

As far as personality traits, the Self-Assured trait makes it easier to get in the Confident mood, which is the best mood to be in for going to work as an actor. The Snob trait can also boost the Confident mood, but only if there are other Snob sims around. Similarly, the Bro trait can provide some Confident boosts if other Bro sims are available to interact with.

How to Join the Acting Career

Like any career in The Sims 4, you can join the acting career through a few different methods:

• Click on the Phone icon in the bottom left corner, then click “Business,” then select “Find a Job.”
• Open the Career panel (hotkey J) and click “Find a Job.” If your sim already has another job, they may need to quit that one first.
• Click on a computer and select “Career,” then “Find a Job.”

However you choose to join the acting career, you will immediately have to select a talent agency. Check out our separate guide to choosing the best acting agency for more info!

How to Level the Acting Skill

To get far in the acting career, you’ll want to improve your Acting skill. Individual gigs will require other skills, but your Acting skill affects your overall job performance for all auditions and gigs. It will also enable you to Perform Scenes for other sims for fame and tips.

There are a few ways you can improve your Acting skill:

• Click on a mirror and select “Practice Acting.”
• Click on a microphone and select “Practice Acting.”
• Click on another sim and select “Perform Scene,” then “Practice Acting.”
• Read one of the Acting books. Vol. 1 only works for levels 1-3, Vol. 2 for levels 4–7, and Vol. 3 for 7–9. You can’t get to level 10 from books.

You’ll be able to keep track of your Acting skill in the Skills panel (hotkey L). Your Acting skill will increase more quickly when your sim is in the Confident mood. At skill Level 4, you’ll unlock the Trouper’s Looking Glass, and at skill Level 8, you’ll unlock the Basic Microphone Stand, both of which increase your Acting skill at a faster rate.

How to Get in the Confident Mood

The Confident mood can boost your acting performance and is always the best mood to be in for any work you do as an actor. Before your sim can be Confident, you may have to deal with any negative moods, such as Sad.

There are a lot of activities in The Sims 4 that will increase your confidence, but here are two quick and easy ones that you can do to quickly get yourself into the right mental state, even when you’re already on the set:

• Click on a sink and select “Brush Teeth.”
• Click on a mirror and select “Psych Self Up.”

Your sim’s personality traits can also affect their mood, including how they react to various activities. The Self Assured trait is the only one that grants a consistent passive bonus to the Confident mood.

Going to Auditions

Once you’ve joined the acting career, you’ll be able to select gigs to audition for through your Career panel (hotkey J). Look for the clipboard icon with the check mark that says “Check Open Auditions” when you hover over it. You can also choose to “Check for Gigs” through the phone’s Business menu or the computer’s Career menu.

Each audition has its own skill requirements, and you’ll have a limited window of time to prepare, so it’s best to choose auditions that closely fit your sim’s current skill set. Higher-paying gigs will appear as you progress through the career, but the lower-level gigs will still be available as well. Go ahead and star in your third Salty Suds Commercial, no one will judge you!

When the time comes to go to an audition, the sim will go on their own just like any non-active career. They will be gone for three hours. Their success or failure depends upon the mood they are in and whether they have the appropriate skills, so make sure you’ve prepared them beforehand. If you fail the audition, you’ll have to pick a new gig and try again. If you pass, you’ll go on to the gig itself — and you’ll have some more preparation to do before that.

Completing the Prep Tasks

After you successfully pass your audition and get the part, you will have about two days to prepare for the role. At the bottom of your Career tab (hotkey J), you’ll have a short list of Prep Tasks that will improve your work performance if completed. These tasks usually involve developing a skill or studying an emotion that is relevant to the role.

To develop a skill, you’ll have to perform activities that raise that skill until it is marked as Completed.

To study an emotion, click on your sim and select “Study the [Name] Emotion.” This will put your sim into that mood, and you will be able to perform special actions on other objects and sims that utilize that emotion. Look for actions that are marked with the mood’s color. For example, when researching the Playful emotion, you will be able to use a mirror to “Make a Silly Face.” Doing this a few times will mark the task as Completed.

Going to Acting Gigs

You’ve passed the audition, you’ve prepared your sim for their role, now it’s time to go to work!

When the time comes to head to your gig, you’ll get a pop-up asking if you would like to Join or Send Alone. You can choose to send your sim to work on their own, in which case they will disappear from the lot for 8 hours, similar to any other job. If you choose to follow your sim to work, you’ll be taken to the studio lot, where you’ll have a number of tasks to complete within an 8 hour window. It’s a lot easier to get a promotion if you actively control your sim.

Preparing for the Performance

Before you can actually give your performance you’ll have a little more preparation to do right there in the studio. A task list will appear in the upper left corner of your UI, and you’ll need to check off each item if you want to have the best chance of success. Note that you may need to introduce yourself to a sim before some of the social options will appear.

There are three tasks that will always be present in this list:

• Get Into Hair and Makeup
• Get Into Costume
• Tell Director You Are Ready

Once you have told the director you are ready, your task list will change to performance tasks, so be sure you have completed the other tasks first!

Completing the Performance

Lights, camera, action! Once you’ve told the director that you’re ready, the lights in the studio will go down and the stage will light up instead. There will be props and marks on the stage for you to interact with. Click on them to perform the actions in your task list. You’ll have two options: perform the action normally, or try a risky action. Great actors take risks, and successfully performing risky actions can double your job performance — but there’s always a chance that you’ll fail, which can have the opposite effect.

Your chances of success are affected by your sim’s current mood, their acting skill level, and whether you performed the prep tasks you were given after the audition. If your sim is really having a terrible day, they can fail at performance actions even if you don’t choose the risky option. But as long as you’ve taken care of their needs and completed the tasks, it should be easy to nail the gig.

When you’ve completed all of the performance tasks, you’ll have just a few in-game minutes before the gig will come to an end. You’ll then have the option to leave the lot or hang around and socialize. There’s no benefit to sticking around unless you want to make friends with your co-workers.

A popup will appear telling you how you did. You’ll receive rewards based on your performance, such as fame and simoleons. Getting Gold will net you the most rewards and usually a same-day promotion.

When you’re done, you can choose your next gig through the Career panel and start the whole process over again.

Actor Career Levels

Like most careers, the actor career offers bonuses every time you are promoted. As a gig-based career, there is no regular schedule. Pay is per gig and varies; there is no set daily rate for each level.

Becoming an Established Name

As your fame grows, you’ll gain perks that can help you with your acting career. The most useful of these is the Established Name perk. This perk allows you to completely bypass the audition stage and go straight to gigs. It also allows you to skip the hair and makeup and wardrobe steps, which is great since they are normally required for every single performance. There are a lot of other perks that you can gain through fame, but this is the only one that offers direct benefits for an actor.

To unlock this trait, you’ll first need to take the Noticeable and CelebuSerum perks. You’ll also need to be a three-star celebrity. To view your current fame level, go to your Simology panel (hotkey Y) and scroll down to the Public Image section. Click on the star to open the Fame Info panel and select “Perks.”