The “Mention Me” Strategy: How Strategic Actors Get Talked About in the Right Rooms
Because the most powerful casting conversations happen when you’re not in the room—this article gives you the strategy, templates, and trackers to make sure your name still shows up.
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What is the Mention Me Plan?
The Mention Me Plan is a visibility strategy I developed to help actors get talked about in the right rooms—without being physically present. It’s not about luck or waiting to be discovered. It’s a deliberate system of touchpoints, visibility moves, and relationship-building actions that keep your name circulating with purpose.
If you’ve ever been in the room when decision-makers are casting—whether you’re an established actor, a rising professional, or someone who’s spent time on set—you’ve likely witnessed it firsthand: people talk about other actors when they’re not there. “I heard she just wrapped a Netflix series.” “Didn’t he train with [Insert known coach]?” These off-hand mentions shape casting conversations every day.
I remember when I was in theatre school, right around the time The Lord of the Rings had taken off, people started buzzing about Viggo Mortensen’s acting ability—how grounded, intense, and committed he was onscreen. Viggo Mortensen wasn’t brand new, but the buzz around him had exploded. Everyone was asking, “Who trained him?” And the name Warren Robertson kept coming up. It made an impression. Even I remember thinking, I want to train with that coach.
Warren, recommended Viggo to an agent, after which he moved out to Los Angeles and began working in theater, TV, and then, with a small part in Peter Weir’s Witness (1985), film. That kind of word-of-mouth momentum didn’t start with The Lord of the Rings—it was already in motion. And it didn’t just boost Viggo. It elevated everyone around him. That’s the power of strategic visibility—it creates ripple effects in all directions.
After years of seeing it happen repeatedly, I began to wonder: how do those actors get talked about in the first place? What makes someone’s name come up behind closed doors? It wasn’t always about talent. That question led me to create a strategy for myself—something intentional, not reactive. I called it the Mention Me Plan.
It’s not a single tool or table. It’s a strategy you build and execute—using the support of your Distribution Plan, Industry Relationship Builder, Visibility Tracker, and other tools inside the Actor Operating System (AOS). (If you missed the full crash course on the AOS, here it is: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.)
While many elite actors, publicists, and industry pros already use strategic visibility tactics, I created the Mention Me Plan as a formalized framework actors can apply intentionally—complete with a three-layer funnel and integrated tools inside the Actor Operating System. It turns industry-level visibility strategy into a repeatable system any actor can use to take action, track their progress, and keep building real momentum—instead of just waiting for someone to talk about them.
In this article, you’ll learn how to design your own Mention Me Plan, tailor it to your career stage, and use it to spark the kind of mentions that lead to bookings, referrals, and long-term relationships.
How the Mention Me Plan Was Born (And Why It Works)
I developed the Mention Me Plan after years of observing what actually gets actors rebooked, recommended, and remembered. It began as a private framework I built for my own career, then evolved through my work with coaching clients. Over time, it became the foundation of how I help actors stay visible—even when they’re not in the room.
From the Mention Me Plan, to the 3-layer Mention Me Funnel, to the Actor Operating System (AOS), everything you’ll read here is built on what actually works—not fluff, not outdated advice, and not guesswork.
Why 'Mention Me' Is the Missing Piece
There are meetings you’ll never be in. Rooms you’ll never enter. But your name still can.
That’s the secret most working actors never get told. While you’re focused on auditioning, improving your reel, or refreshing your headshots, the people who greenlight your career—producers, directors, casting execs, financiers, even festival programmers—are making decisions. And those decisions are often guided by the quiet power of mentioning.
“Who do we know for this role?”
“Someone just told me about an actress who’s perfect for this.”
“Have you seen that guy from the indie that premiered at SXSW?”
This article isn’t about fame. It’s about strategic presence. Building a system that keeps you in the right conversations—especially when you’re not in the room.
PART 1: Understand the Real Game — You're Not Just Getting Cast, You're Getting Talked About
Decision-makers operate on shorthand. They don’t browse every Actors Access page. They rely on mentions, trust, familiarity. If your name doesn’t come up, you don’t get considered.
You need to build what we call a Mention Me Plan—a deliberate way to:
Get noticed by the right people.
Get remembered for the right reasons.
Get talked about when it counts.
This works whether you’re just starting out or already booking work. It’s not about chasing—it's about engineering visibility that travels.
Pro Tip: Mentions aren’t accidental. They’re the result of consistent, strategic exposure.
This isn’t just theory—it’s something I’ve lived.
I talk about this in my article Hollywood’s Inner Circle: Navigating the Power Structures for Career Growth, but it’s worth repeating here—because it perfectly illustrates how a Mention Me Plan works in the real world.
While I was in Egypt, I made a deliberate decision to hand out my business card to anyone and everyone—even people I didn’t know personally. Taxi drivers. People on the street. Business owners. CEO and employees at all kinds of companies—it didn’t matter what industry they were in. I knew that at some point, someone would know someone who knew someone in entertainment. And eventually, my card would land in the right hands.
What I was doing wasn’t just bold—it was part of my Mention Me Plan, which I had mapped out alongside my career blueprint for working in Egypt. One of the action points I logged into my Distribution Plan inside the Actor Operating System (AOS)—a system I created to keep myself organized and visible as an actor—was simple: Get my business card in circulation. That one small move was a visibility strategy—executed with intention.
It wasn’t random. It was part of a larger system—what I now teach as the crossover between your Mention Me Plan and the career management tools inside the Actor Operating System (AOS): your Distribution Plan, Industry Relationship Builder, Visibility Tracker, Press & PR Tracker, and PR Contact List. These tools work together. And when they do, they increase your odds of getting your name mentioned in rooms you’re not in.
You can also pull directly from your Yearly Achievement Tracker and Monthly Reports & Wins inside the AOS to fuel your Mention Me Plan with real, strategic material—turning your milestones into visibility moments that keep your name circulating.
But let’s be clear—your Mention Me Plan is not the tools or trackers. It’s the actual strategy you design to get your name circulating in rooms you’re not in. It’s your visibility blueprint: a custom plan built around timing, positioning, relationships, and creative visibility moves. The AOS exists to help you execute, track, and organize that strategy—but it’s not the plan itself.
Before we dive into how to create a top-tier Mention Me Plan—one that’s clear, strategic, and designed to get people talking—let’s walk through the tools that support it.
I help my clients take mention-worthy ideas (from their Mention Me Plan) and strategically distribute, track, and amplify them—while also giving them new strategies and visibility ideas to implement using these tools:
Distribution Plan – A workspace for planning and tracking how you circulate your name, face, and work across platforms and audiences. Inside the AOS, this table helps you brainstorm strategic visibility ideas, draw inspiration from pre-filled examples, test distribution platforms (IMDb, LinkedIn, Instagram, mixers, newsletters, WhatsApp, etc.), and track what was shared, where, and with whom. It’s not just about logging actions—it’s about intentionally designing how your presence moves through the industry and beyond.
Industry Relationship Builder – A curated list of people you’ve already met or have some connection with—designed to help nurture those relationships over time through meaningful follow-up and updates.
Visibility Tracker – A cold outreach log for visibility efforts. This is where actors track who they’re reaching out to for the first time (CDs, producers, etc.), how they’re showing up, and what kind of exposure they’re creating.
Press & PR Tracker – This is your personal publicist tool. It tracks the full life cycle of your media outreach—what’s been pitched, what’s pending, and what’s been published—so you’re not just sending things out, you’re actually following up, managing replies, and planning your next PR moves.
PR Contact List – Think of this as your relationship builder for press. It’s your media contact log—people you’ve met, researched, or want to build a connection with—so you’re not cold-pitching every time. It’s great for planning intentional outreach when you’re ready for your next visibility push.
These tools don’t define the Mention Me Plan—they support it. They help you take your visibility ideas and turn them into measurable action, tracked and executed inside the AOS.
Then, when press opportunities land, features are published, or milestones happen, they get logged into your Press Archive, your Yearly Achievement Tracker, and your Monthly Reports & Wins—so nothing slips through the cracks and every visibility win becomes reusable, trackable momentum.
If the coverage includes a video—like an interview, panel, or red carpet clip—also upload it to your Reels & Media Vault. This is your centralized video library for demo reels, voice samples, performance clips, branded content, and media moments. Keeping it organized means you’ll always have polished material ready to pitch, submit, or include in a presentation deck.
Here’s where that system showed up in real life—long before it became a Notion template or a tool I shared with clients.
One day, during production on Heliopolis—a feature film I was cast in while working in Egypt—our line producer went to a gear rental house. The employee behind the counter—someone I had never met and who didn’t know me personally—pulled out my business card and recommended me as someone worth casting.
The line producer smiled and said, “She’s already in our film.”
What makes this story so powerful is the timing. That moment happened before he’d ever seen me act, before we even started filming. So by the time we met on set, my name was already in his head. I wasn’t just another actor showing up to work—I was someone a complete stranger had gone out of their way to recommend. It planted a seed.
Later, after the shoot wrapped, that same line producer ended up recommending me to others. Yes, he liked my work. But it was that early mention, that unexpected signal from someone outside the production, that made me stand out even more. That’s the whole point of a Mention Me Plan: to create strategic visibility that builds trust, plants seeds, and keeps your name circulating—so when new opportunities come up, you’re already top of mind.
That one moment confirmed everything. When you take visibility seriously, your name starts to circulate without you even being in the room. And that’s the entire point of building a system that helps your name travel: so the right people hear it at the right time—even if you’re nowhere nearby.
The Heliopolis story is just one example—I’ve used my Mention Me Plan in countless ways over the years, and it’s led to connections, castings, interviews, and opportunities I never would’ve landed by waiting for someone to “discover” me.
I did the same thing with my demo reel, which I circulated just as strategically—and it reached major players in the Egyptian and international entertainment industries. That reel made its way to A-list talent like Tamer Hosny (star of El Badla, one of Egypt’s highest-grossing films and known as the “King of the Generation” in Arab pop culture), who personally invited me to a private meeting to discuss his next project. It also reached Mohamed El Sobky (one of Egypt’s most prominent and controversial producers, behind dozens of box office hits), the late Mustafa Fahmy (legendary Egyptian actor known for his decades-long career in TV and film), including a private, in-studio voice test for the official Arabic dubbing team of major Disney-Pixar animated blockbuster, Ratatouille—one of the studio’s most celebrated, award-winning global hits—including the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film of the Year. My reel also landed in the hands of producers behind an American project filming in Egypt, further expanding my opportunities beyond borders.
That kind of traction didn’t happen by chance. It came from strategic visibility moves that positioned my work in the right hands—long before I was ever in the room.
What started as a private system I first used for myself, then with clients—originally printed in a binder with a digital companion folder—has now evolved into a full digital platform: The Actor Operating System (AOS). Built in Notion, it’s designed to help actors stay organized, visible, and strategic across every area of their career.
With over 20 integrated tools, it brings together everything from relationship tracking to press planning and distribution strategy—all in one place. Some clients still prefer using both the digital and physical versions—like I do—because sometimes seeing it, holding it, and flipping through it brings a different kind of clarity.
And the best part? I’ve already filled the system with real strategies, creative prompts, and golden visibility ideas—so you’re not starting from scratch. You’ll find examples, suggestions, and tactics I’ve personally used or shared with private clients, already embedded inside the tables.
Before we dive into the VIP-only, paywalled section below, here’s how you can access the AOS depending on your membership:
If you’re a VIP, the Notion template is already included with your subscription.
Paid subscribers can get the full template for $27.
Free subscribers can purchase the full course + Notion system for $47.
This isn’t just a tool—it’s the system I created to help working actors stay on the radar of decision-makers. And if you’re serious about building strategic visibility, this is how you do it right.
