Success Story: Val Athanassiou Talks Booking Australian Government Ads and One Wild Energy Spot

Val Athanassiou is a character. The New South Wales-based actor brings a youthful energy to his work, and has enough industry knowledge to cover the Gold Coast. Athanassiou has been on Casting Networks for years, and he’s got us down to a science, booking 90% of his work off the platform.

Athanassiou also has an interesting niche that he books regularly: Australian government ads. He shared a number of spots he’s done in this sector, along with plenty of advice for mastering Casting Networks.

Insights: Lessons From Val Athanassiou

Have professional headshots for different roles and keep your reels short and updated.

Read audition briefs fully, submit auditions quickly and communicate with your agent.

Treat each audition as an opportunity, be professional and don’t rush to leave the building.

How did you decide to become an actor?

It was pretty much a dream from as [early] as I can recall, even growing up in New South Wales. At school, I often found myself standing up in front of the class, or my peers, or my parents doing terrible impersonations.

I apparently got onto this Tom Jones thing for a while where I’d get dressed up in flares and baggy shirts, and sing along to songs like “What’s New Pussycat?” It kept me out of trouble with my peers and often got me into trouble with my teachers. The seed was planted there at a very young age.

Growing up and working in my parents’ seafood restaurant in the northern part of Sydney, I’d often sneak out after school, and after helping them out, to a little movie theatre across the road. I was often the only human being there. They would be playing Marx Brothers movies and science fiction films like Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and Battlestar Galactica.

The more time I thought I could spend in front of a camera, I thought to myself, “This is something I want to do. It’s something I need to do.” Hopefully, I can keep doing it until they carry me out in a long box with metal handles. I’ve succeeded so far. 50 years old this year and I’m still going!

How did you discover Casting Networks?

I might have come across it by accident. When I first started building a profile, I was searching for anything and everything [where] I could get my face up online.

I must have had 15 profiles up at any given time, and eventually came across Casting Networks. Then the agent that I had at the time said, “Look, pick these three or four.” One of them was Casting Networks.

Ninety percent of my work comes through Casting Networks. I’ve been on it for a long time, and it’s still my favorite. It’s the first one I recommend to any budding actors.

Thinking about joining Casting Networks? Sign up for a free trial today!

You’ve got multiple ads running on different mediums right now—all of which you booked up through Casting Networks. Can you please name a few and walk me through the audition process for one of them?

One of the most high-profile ads turns out to be one of the most lucrative as well, because it’s gone into a turnaround or rollover three times now. I originally filmed it back in 2021. It was an ad for AGL, which is the Australian Gas Light Company. It’s the big company here in Australia that pretty much takes all of our money when it comes to gas and electricity.

They were looking for real families—dads with real daughters, or daughters with real dads. I tapped my daughter on the shoulder and said, “Would you be interested?” We sat in front of the camera and the brief was to pretend you’re looking at an AGL app. I’m the dad who isn’t quite all there with technology. I’ve got it upside down and my daughter’s there with a sly grin on her face, “You silly man, you. This is the way you do it.” That then resulted in a callback.

We went to the casting director in Melbourne and we did it all again. The directors were both there and they must have liked us because they gave us the job. It’s one of those almost “blink and you’ll miss” ads. You can very clearly see me, and in the full ad, my daughter gets the full screen to herself. It was a fun ad and it’s still running. It’s about to get renewed for another 12 months.

This is the benefit I’ve found over the years of doing these ads that are tied to government somehow. They pay very well and they tend to reuse them. That’s happened to me quite a few times over the years.

Any others?

Last year I did a short comedic piece for a mining company, of all things, called Envirosuite. The pitch was to sell plain coal, renewables and renewable energy from digging a big hole in the ground. The whole “Don’t look at me, man. I only work here,” bit. That was a fun gig.

I’m the team leader, the boss. I’m conversing with my team telling them, “We’ve got some big issues here. There’s a storm, all the power poles are down. What are we going to do? What are we going to do?” “Oh, we’ll fire up the renewables, boss, and we’ll save the town.” That one’s still going. That’s online and on social media.

What was the audition process for that one like?

That was a bit more rigorous because I didn’t quite have an understanding of what the ad was about in the beginning, and they had me sign an NDA. The hint was that it was energy-related, not insofar as mining goes. I was just me in a high-vis top running through the script. The lines were quite straightforward.

One of the girls that was there was actually from Boston. They used her natural accent. The rest of us were Aussies. She was wonderful to work with. I think I had to go back twice, once via Zoom, and then in the casting agent’s office with the director. That was a pretty rigorous one, that one.

Excellent.

I had another fairly easy one. We have Flybuys here, which is kind of like your American Express miles: the more you spend, the more you get back. It’s an interesting little rewards program. I did one for them several years ago and they tapped me on the shoulder to do another one.

It was almost like a sequel where I’m playing the very suspicious father-in-law who’s eyeing out the potential new son-in-law while he serves me up a wonderful plate of seafood at Christmas time. That one I didn’t even have to audition for. That was last Christmas.

The other ad that’s on at the moment is for Deakin University. It’s a big university here in Australia. One part of what they offer at this university is all based around sports. There’s a big push here, as there is globally, to empower women in sports, and that’s what this ad was for.

The audition process was me just looking slightly off camera, and a few lines here and there between my daughter and I. Me being very, very proud of her because she’s going to not just get into Deakin, but get into sports.

What’s the most interesting on-set story you have?

The most interesting one…actually, there is one more that just popped into my head! I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement again. It was all about energy. I seem to be getting a lot of ads, energy and politics at the moment. It’s probably typecast.

This ad’s got a political bent and it’s trying to sell the idea that we shouldn’t be afraid of nuclear energy, okay? They asked me to audition for the role of a clown, and because they’ve not given me any information, I’m thinking, “What’s going on here? Thank goodness I don’t have a fear of clowns!” They asked me to read a couple of lines in a very deadpan style to make it look like this clown’s a bit of a simple fella. The callback was non-existent. It just came straight back the following day saying, “We love it, Val. You’ve got the job.”

I turn up on set for fittings and wardrobe. It was filming a couple of days later. There’s my outfit, the full top-to-toe clown outfit. We must have run through six or seven different outfits and another 10, 15 variations within those outfits.

Photo courtesy of Val Athanassiou.

I’m looking across the room and there’s a fellow there with a huge suit on. It looks like something out of Monsters University. What’s going on over there? Who knows? On the other side of the room, a lady is wearing this huge hat or full face/full head bit of gear. She looks like a bird: two big eyes and a big beak. I look over my shoulder thinking, “What have I gotten myself into?”

Then the shoot date comes, and it’s in the biggest town hall in the middle of Melbourne. It is old, it’s creaky, but it’s beautiful. Then it all falls into place. The guy that was there in the monster bit, he’s got the full outfit; and the lady that had the bird head on, she’s in a complete bird suit. Another girl’s there with this outfit with eight arms all attached because she’s a spider. You can’t make this stuff up.

It’s all about the fears and being misunderstood and they’re selling themselves. The spider’s saying, “I’m not mean, I’m jittery. Nobody should be afraid of me. I’m just a poor little spider. I won’t do anything unless you come after me.” The bird over here’s going, “Just because I steal things, doesn’t mean you should be afraid of me. I’m just trying to build things for my nest.” And the monster over here says, “Come on, I can’t even fit under a bed. Why should you be afraid of me?” My lines were basically, “Stephen King, he gave me a bad rap. I’m just a clown. I can’t believe they think we’re terrifying.”

There was a little animatronic model off to our left, which was meant to be this little nuclear reactor. There’s puppeteers and hydraulics and they’re timing the beak of the bird to the lines, and the legs of this spider, and the mouth of this Monsters University knockoff. I had the easy job. I just had makeup on and I’m just sitting there doing this and reciting my lines.

That was a long process from the audition to the wardrobe, to some principal photography to the shoot date. It ran for about two months. Each actor had a slot to turn up across that period. I was in this clown outfit for 15 hours and it was one of those hot days, so the others who were in these full outfits were really feeling the heat. It took about five days out of my life, and I reckon about 20 pounds off my weight.

You’ve rattled off a ton of stuff that you’ve done. What would you say helps someone succeed on Casting Networks?

Be surgical and succinct. Have your 10, maybe 15 headshots. Don’t use screen grabs. Don’t use AI. Use proper, professional, old-school happy snaps. Have one that’s just your generic “This is you on a good day.” The rest [should be] some form of a character or an archetype: person in a business suit, person in military fatigues, person in a leather vest.

As for your reels, gather your footage and have it professionally edited. I do all of my own, but you need to have them short and sharp. Your buzz reel: try and keep that under a minute where it’s just little grabs of some of your favorite stuff.

Always consult with your agent. If you’re not reaching out to fellow actors who you have some faith or confidence in (or have not done something approximating what I’m talking about), just ask for help. All we want to do is help.

List those credits. Again, in conjunction with your agent, if you have one, what’s their feel? Should you [list] just the last three years, or should you have everything on Casting Networks? It takes a bit of time to set up, but get those years, [products, directors and production houses] right.

If you haven’t got a lot of footage coming in, well, the buzz reel is the first thing that you can pretty much update every time you’ve got a job. Put the new and good stuff at the beginning, and the slightly older stuff toward the end.

Just bear in mind that the image that you’re putting forward is the first thing that the casting director and the potential employer will see, so try and keep everything as up to date as you possibly can.

What’s the best way to approach an audition? Are there any audition tips and self tape advice that you could share?

Always read the brief from beginning to end. I’m guilty of missing things from time to time, but always read that brief and make sure you understand everything. If there’s anything unclear, just go straight back to the agent and ask.

Try and get your audition done, if you can, within 24 hours. If not, give your agent a good, maybe eight to 10 hours lead time so that after you’ve uploaded it, they can review it. The agent can connect with the casting house and make sure of all those necessary changes if need be.

Everyone’s here to help you. Everybody wants you to do your best. There’s no judgment. It’s just a matter of whether you can do the job. Can you take direction? Be polite, be courteous and be professional. Don’t be too friendly. Leave the room quickly, but leave the building slowly in case they think, “Wait a minute, come back. Try this one out.”

It can be tough, but don’t overthink it. Always think about it as a job. If you do the job well, then you might get the bigger job.

Every single audition—no matter how weird or unimportant you think it may be—is another stepping stone. It’s another rung on that ladder and it sits in an archive. Somebody might pull that up one day and say, “Remember when Val did that ad for Flybuys? Get him back. We want him to do another Flybuys ad.” The proof’s in the pudding. That’s exactly what happened to me.

And be good to yourself. Don’t be hard on yourself. You’re there to do the job. Just do the job. You’re going to be a donut? What’s your motivation? Be a donut.