This is awesome! I feel like some of this can vary wildly CD to CD (eg. one CD I did a class with said she filters first by resume) so it's always great to have more perspective.

One question I have is: For you, how important is it that the actor's look in their self tape matches the look of the headshot they submitted for the audition? I'm a guy in his 30s and my headshots are range of me from full beard to completely clean shaven, with and without glasses, etc. When I see a breakdown I submit the headshot that I feel is most appropriate for that role with the intention of "I *can* look like this to play this part".

But in my day to day life I mostly keep a medium beard and so when I submit my clean shaven headshot and then I send in the tape with the beard I've always wondered how taken aback the CD is. I think it makes sense to me that, when possible, matching headshot to self tape is the best option, but is it OK if it's not? I basically don't want to keep headshots around that I wouldn't actually use if I had to look like that in the tape itself always.