The Actor's Guide to Creating a Character

1. Character Acting: The Art of Truthful Transformation

"No matter how far you get from your straight behavior, it's still always you that's doing it."

Transformative foundation. Character acting is not about pretending to be someone else, but about revealing different aspects of yourself through the lens of a character. This requires actors to dig deep into their own experiences and emotions to find common ground with their roles.

Techniques for transformation:

• Physical Impediments: Adopting specific physical traits or conditions
• Accents and dialects: Mastering speech patterns different from your own
• Emotional preparation: Tapping into personal experiences to generate authentic emotions
• Imitation: Using observed behaviors as a springboard for character development

The goal is to create a performance that is both truthful and unrecognizable from the actor's normal persona. This balance of authenticity and transformation is the hallmark of great character acting.

2. The Essence of Character: Distilling Complex Roles

"In the end, you must distill everything you know about your character into a single word or short phrase which is the defining trait of the person you are playing."

Simplify to amplify. The Essence of Character is a powerful tool for actors to understand and embody their roles. By boiling down a character to their core trait or driving force, actors can make clearer choices and create more consistent performances.

Steps to find the Essence:

1. Analyze the script thoroughly
2. Identify the character's main motivations and conflicts
3. Consider how other characters perceive and interact with your character
4. Look for recurring themes or behaviors in the character's actions
5. Distill all this information into a single, powerful phrase or concept

Examples of character essences:

• Hamlet: "The Indecisive Avenger"
• Willy Loman: "The Delusional Dreamer"
• Blanche DuBois: "The Fading Southern Belle"

By focusing on this essence, actors can more easily make decisions about how their character would react in any given situation, ensuring a cohesive and compelling performance.

3. Actions and Super Objectives: The Building Blocks of Performance

"Actions are the bricks with which you construct your performance. Emotion is the mortar that binds the bricks together."

Concrete behaviors drive performance. Actions are specific, playable behaviors that actors can perform to bring their characters to life. Super Objectives are the overarching goals that drive a character throughout the entire play or film.

Types of Actions:

• Physical Actions: Tangible behaviors (e.g., sweeping the floor, closing a door)
• Interpersonal Actions: Behaviors directed at others (e.g., to seduce, to intimidate)
• Inner Actions: Internal processes (e.g., to contemplate, to decide)

Implementing Actions and Super Objectives:

1. Identify your character's Super Objective
2. Break down each scene into specific Actions
3. Ensure each Action serves the Super Objective
4. Practice performing Actions without dialogue to internalize the behavior
5. Allow emotions to arise naturally from performing the Actions

By focusing on concrete Actions rather than trying to generate emotions, actors can create more authentic and engaging performances. The Super Objective provides a through-line that unifies all of a character's choices and behaviors throughout the story.

4. Particularizations: Connecting Personal Experience to Character

"By using associations to fuse the meanings in the text to meanings I already understand."

Personal anchors for authenticity. Particularizations are specific, personal associations that actors use to connect with their characters' experiences and emotions. This technique allows actors to bring authenticity to roles that may be far removed from their own lives.

How to use Particularizations:

1. Identify moments in the script that require deeper understanding
2. Search for personal experiences or memories that evoke similar emotions
3. Use "as if" statements to bridge the gap between your experience and the character's
4. Allow the particularization to inform your physical and emotional choices
5. Practice the scene using the particularization, then gradually let it fade into the background

Examples:

• Playing a character grieving a lost loved one: "It's as if I lost my childhood pet"
• Portraying a character in love: "It's as if I'm seeing my partner for the first time after a long separation"

Particularizations help actors avoid generalized or clichéd performances by grounding their choices in specific, personal experiences. This technique can be especially useful when dealing with heightened language or unfamiliar historical contexts.

5. Period and Style: Bringing Historical Characters to Life

"Style can go without period, but a period cannot go without style."

Historical authenticity with modern relevance. Acting in period pieces requires a deep understanding of the historical context and social norms of the era, as well as the ability to make these characters relatable to modern audiences.

Key elements of period and style work:

• Research: Immerse yourself in the history, art, and culture of the period
• Language: Master the speech patterns and vocabulary of the era
• Physical behavior: Understand and embody the posture, gestures, and mannerisms of the time
• Costume: Use period-appropriate clothing to inform your movement and bearing
• Social norms: Internalize the etiquette and social expectations of the era

Balancing historical accuracy and modern relatability:

1. Find universal human experiences within the period-specific circumstances
2. Use Particularizations to connect personally with unfamiliar situations
3. Focus on the character's objectives and actions, which are timeless
4. Allow the period elements to inform, but not overshadow, the core of the performance

By thoroughly researching and embodying the period and style, actors can create performances that are both historically authentic and emotionally engaging for contemporary audiences.

6. The Power of Nursery Rhymes and Spoon Rivers in Actor Training

"Nursery rhymes provide a simple way for you to practice the skills you've learned so far."

Simplicity breeds creativity. Using nursery rhymes and Spoon River poems as training exercises allows actors to focus on essential skills without the added pressure of complex texts or character backgrounds.

Benefits of nursery rhyme exercises:

• Encourage creative interpretation of simple text
• Practice justifying seemingly nonsensical actions
• Develop the ability to create multiple distinct characters quickly
• Hone improvisation skills within a structured framework

Spoon River exercises:

• Work with heightened language and poetic text
• Practice creating full characters from limited information
• Develop monologue skills
• Explore a wide range of emotions and experiences

These exercises provide a safe space for actors to experiment with different techniques and push the boundaries of their creativity. By mastering these seemingly simple tasks, actors build a strong foundation for tackling more complex roles and texts.

7. Mastering Film and TV Acting: Adapting Stage Techniques

"Truth is always the truth, and truthful acting is truthful acting."

Adjust scale, not essence. The core principles of good acting remain the same across all mediums, but film and TV require some adjustments in terms of scale and technique.

Key differences in film and TV acting:

• Intimacy: Perform for the camera lens rather than a large theater
• Voice: Use a more conversational tone, letting microphones do the work
• Pacing: Allow for more pauses and subtle reactions
• Collaboration: Be prepared to work with minimal rehearsal or direction
• Proportion: Scale down physical gestures and emotions for the camera

Adapting stage techniques for the screen:

1. Maintain the same level of preparation and character work
2. Focus on subtle facial expressions and eye movements
3. Trust that small, truthful actions will read on camera
4. Be prepared to work out of sequence and in short bursts
5. Develop the ability to quickly drop into character between takes

By understanding these differences and making the necessary adjustments, stage-trained actors can successfully transition to film and TV work while maintaining the depth and authenticity of their performances.

Last updated: November 10, 2024