Up to this point I’ve written mostly on objectives, actions, obstacles, and so forth – all related to what your character expects, discovers, does and why – but I haven’t yet spoken about figuring out who your character is. It goes without saying – though I’m saying it anyway – that actors play fictional characters. Those characters might be super-heros, historical figures, space aliens, or characters who seem not all that different from you and me. Actors even play talking tea cups – somebody must voice those Disney roles, after all, and voicing a cartoon character is acting too. When I talk about fictional characters, I am referring to any fictional representation that is sentient and thinks, feels, and behaves in ways that seem human-like.

When you work on creating your character, you need to develop an understanding and personalization of the totality of what makes that fictional representation who they are. You want to understand what makes them tick and how they are unique and different from the other characters in the play and in the world at large. You need to know their dreams and goals, their beliefs and opinions, their likes and dislikes, their fears, and aversions. You also want to know about their intellect, their outlook on life, their moral compass, their sense of humor (if they have one), their level of confidence, and whether they are by nature an optimist or a pessimist. As I work on character, I focus on answering the following 4 questions which I will go into detail on in future posts.

  1. What are the basic facts of my character – their gender, age, background, profession?
  2. What are my character’s qualities – their more, or less, permanent characteristics or personality traits?
  3. What are my character’s key opinions, beliefs, and perceptions of the world and people around them, and do they have any blind spots that distort how they see things?
  4. What are my character’s physical and vocal characteristics, including any permanent or temporary conditions – disabilities, illnesses, or states of mind that impact them?

Now, of course, a person in a play is a fictional creation and not a real person. But to effectively bring that character to life in a performance, the actor needs to think of this fictional creation as being as being as multi-dimensional and complex as a real person. Like myself, I’m sure all of you aspire to make your character’s come alive as believable life-like human beings. This post is designed to introduce you to a process to make that come about.

As I begin to find answers to the 4 questions above, I start on what I call my journey to the character. I begin to see things as my character does, to find in myself the qualities and characteristics my character has, and to embody how my character speaks, moves and gestures. However, I never stop being me. Good acting does not require one to lose touch with reality. But after doing this work, and through the process of rehearsals, I find it easier and easier to drop in to the character I’m playing. Imagination plays a big part in this, and I’ll talk more about imagination in a future post.

An acting teacher once said to me that all of us are more richly complex than the most fascinating characters ever written. This teacher went on to say that any character can be accessed by what we already have within us – all of us have a Hamlet inside us, or a Joan of Arc inside us. My teacher used two sculpture metaphors I find very helpful: 1) look at yourself as clay that can be molded into the character you are playing, or 2) consider yourself a block of stone where you chip away anything that is not the character.

Actors who possess the ability to play a wide variety of characters are said to have range. Meryl Streep is an actress known for the wide range of characters she can play. She seems to have the entire breadth of humanity within her, and can believably mold herself into whatever type of character she is playing. This is an enviable ability. Particularly for stage actors. Many film actors merely play a version of themselves from one movie to the next. For film stars in particular the audience pays to see these actors play their unchanging screen persona regardless of the underlying story. In fact, many big budget screenplays write the lead character with a specific actor in mind. It’s an economic thing really. Celebrity actors are market commodities and there is a great deal of incentive not to change up a financially rewarding formula. Streep is one of the rare examples of a film star who draws people who want to see her embody very different characters from one film to another. She truly is an actor’s actor.

I want to briefly note here that creating a coherent believable character does not mean that the behavior of the character will always be consistent and predictable. On the contrary, people are filled with paradoxes and contradictions. People often say one thing and do another. The same is true with fictional characters. It is also the case that in certain circumstances, people will surprise us with what they are capable of doing. A good play will strive to present characters, often ordinary people, in extraordinary circumstances. Those are the kind of conditions where characters surprise us, and show us what they are truly made of. What a character does is revealing. Actions do speak louder than words.

Another quick tangent on stereotypes and 2 dimensional characters. Some scripts present us with characters that are more of what we might call caricatures. These characters are more generalized types then multi-dimensional beings and are often more predictable – sometimes even mechanical – in their behavior. Sometimes this is purposeful as the playwright is working in a particular style, such as comedy, satire, or farce. Sometimes it is unintended and is merely the by-product of poor playwrighting. Generally, I try to avoid working on plays where characters are poorly written, but in the cases of comedy, satire, or farce, I still try to flesh out as much complexity as possible – searching for what makes them a distinct individual in an otherwise stereotypical representation. Creating broad characterizations presents its own set of challenges which I’ll discuss more in a future post on Comic Characterizations.

One final piece of advice. It is vital that you come to respect and even love your character. Your job is not to judge them – leave that to the audience. Your job is not to play at the character, or indicate they are the good guy or bad guy. Forget labels! Your job is to internalize their view of the world and to justify their actions as the right ones, the best ones, the moral ones. Bad guys almost always think they are the good guys – or they love being the bad guy. Life often puts us in positions where we are forced to choose between two less than ideal actions. And in drama, this often means choosing the lesser of two evils. Make sure you understand that your character is always trying to do this. Fight for what your character believes in; fight for what they want; stand your ground. And if your character loves being the bad guy, then you need to love being the bad guy and enjoy doing all the terrible things they do.

That’s all for now. More on the way.

David