Fortunately, I never had to do the waiter thing. When I got out of college, I immediately started to teach acting. One of the first jobs I had was in a federally-funded program where I taught drama to...
'School Daze' was one of the highlights of my life because it was the first chance I had to act on screen. I would have been happy if that had been it, because I proved that I could do it.
If you want to be an actor, you should just get out there and do it. I don't go for the approach of first getting photos and an agent. I think you should start with the work, and the other stuff will...