Be an extra in movies and TV.
MyCastingFile is an online casting database for background work. You keep one profile holding your sizes, your wardrobe, your vehicle and current photographs, and background casting departments search it when they are filling a day on a film, a television episode or a commercial.
It is not a route to a speaking role and it is not a substitute for an agent. Everything on it exists to answer one question a casting department has at short notice: who is available tomorrow, looks like this, and owns the thing we need. That is a narrow job, and the profiles that get called are the accurate ones rather than the impressive ones.
Background work is a real and underrated way to learn how a set runs, and it pays. It is not a route to a speaking role, and treating it as an audition is what earns a reputation rather than a booking.
The thing that decides whether you get called is whether your file is accurate. Sizes change, cars change, hair changes. A profile three years out of date is worse than none, because the booking that comes from it goes wrong on the day, and the person who booked you remembers.
Fill in the unglamorous fields properly. Whether you have a car and what it looks like, whether you own a suit, a uniform, formal wear, sports gear. Background casting is frequently a search for a specific look with a specific prop, and the person who filled that box in is the person who gets the call.
Be reachable and answer fast. These bookings are often made the day before, sometimes the same morning, and the role goes to whoever replied first and can actually be there.
On the day: arrive when you are called, bring the wardrobe options you were asked for, stay where you are put, and do not approach the principals. Doing those four things reliably is the whole of a background reputation, and it is what gets you called again.