On Becoming the Character

You are not the character. A character is not a person. A character is a fictional thing, and it is only tangentially related to the 360-degree, 3-Dimensional human being like you and me. A fictional character isn’t a real human being, they are a collection of words and actions that when embodied, create the illusion of a real human being. There’s nothing wrong with being an illusionist, there’s nothing wrong with learning how to create that illusion for the audience’s benefit and the techniques to do that.

All the techniques and character building exercises in the world will not help you to become the character, because you can’t. They’re voodoo. They’re superstition and most of the time it just wastes good rehearsal time. You can only make a transformation in the mind of the audience. If you do actually achieve a REAL transformation, then I suggest you take some time off and rest, drink lots of water and green tea and come back when the delusions stop.

We judge a person’s character on what they do, upon on their actions. By their actions we see what kind of person they are. The same can be said of a fictional character, we understand them by their verbal and psychophysical actions.

That’s not to say that acting is just saying the lines. It is understanding the script, learning the lines by rote, connecting to the script and its contents, connecting to your scene partners and living in the moment. The rest is technical skills and you can learn them anywhere professionals practice.

Does that mean that acting is just mindlessly saying lines. By no means. But acting isn’t about creating a new human being. You are already a more interesting human being now than any character you could create. Learning to bring yourself to the role and the role to yourself, now that’s the real task of the actor