Alum-Run Talent Agency Powers Political Ads Ahead of Election Season
Meadows alum Mary Collins (B.F.A. ’79) built her own talent agency from the ground up and now lends talent to a host of opportunities, including political ads.
For 40 years, the Mary Collins Agency has been representing on-camera and voice-over performers across a range of media platforms including commercials, corporate videos, film, television and even games. With this variety of talent their artists can book a wide assortment of opportunities, but there is one specialization that sets the agency apart: voice acting for political ads.
Mary Collins, a Meadows advertising alum, established her own talent agency in 1984 after gaining industry experience at The Bloom Agency, as a casting director, and other talent agencies. At the young age of just 26, she opened the doors to the Mary Collins Agency, initially only representing experienced actors at a time when other agencies would take on a variety of talent, like models and child actors. But it wasn’t until the early 90s that Collins carved out her agency’s unique niche of political voice acting.
“When I worked for the other agencies before opening my own, I was always told not to book political ads,” explains Collins. “But we got into it when one of our veteran voices was cast to be the voice of the Ross Perot campaign in 1992 when he was running against George H. W. Bush for his reelection, and with Perot being a business tycoon from Dallas rather than a politician, his ads garnered even extra interest.”
Perot did not win, but his campaign re-hired voice talent from the Mary Collins Agency for ads when he ran again in the 1996 election. From then on, the agency’s reputation for providing political voices began to grow, not only because of the experienced voices they now had in this field, but because they could provide knowledgeable service and a quick turnaround time for talent. Now, the agency has a host of highly experienced voice professionals who speak for candidates on ads for local and state campaigns, and even Congressional and Presidential. Since 2000, the Mary Collins Agency has provided voices for at least one presidential candidate per election cycle, including the upcoming election in November, as well as federal and state congressional and senatorial races.
Mary Collins (second from right) with colleagues Alice Galipp, Kim Trusty and Sara Rhodes. Courtesy of the Mary Collins Agency Facebook page.
With the looming election, the agency has been booked and busy this year. But their talent representation goes far beyond that of political ads. Not only does the Mary Collins Agency represent talent professionals across a variety of mediums, it also represents a large number of Meadows alumni. Due to her personal experience and strong connection with Meadows, Collins knew that the school boasts one of the strongest theatre and acting programs in the country, with many alumni having gone on to act on Broadway or in film and television series.
“I am very proud to say we have represented so many incredibly talented SMU graduates over the years, many of who I signed early on and are still with the agency,” says Collins, who currently represents 15 Meadows alumni, equating to about 10% of the agency’s talent force. “We also have a great track record of success from signing Meadows graduate students. We feel it enhances their learning experience to have hands-on representation in the areas of film, television, commercials, corporate media, as well as voiceover, game voices and anime.”
Collins, who calls attending Meadows “the greatest decision” she’s ever made, initially came to SMU as a math major but soon decided she wanted to do something more creative. Though the Temerlin Advertising Institute had not yet been established during Collins’ time at Meadows, she knew she was interested in promoting film and television, which eventually led her to a degree in Advertising and Public Relations, which then fell under the Division of Journalism.
Shortly after graduating, Collins was hired at The Bloom Agency by Marillyn Seeberger (formerly Leaman), the first woman to hold a position as head of a production department in a major ad agency. Seeberger, who at the time had not yet attended college, had been impressed that Collins held an advertising degree from a prestigious university like SMU. About four decades later Seeberger ended up attending SMU Meadows herself at the age of 82, and graduating from the Division of Film & Media Arts at the age of 85 in 2022, resulting in quite a full-circle moment.
“She hires me right out of SMU, I become her casting director, then 42 years later she asks me if I will help her cast her screenplay that she wrote for her senior spring semester project before she also graduates from Meadows!” Collins explains. “I think this story is a real testament to SMU.”
In 2018, Collins received the Pioneer Award from the Dallas Producers Association, which recognizes and honors the contributions and achievements of industry professionals who have worked in the Dallas area over time, and she continues to blaze a trail in the industry.