How do I say that line?

I hear this from actors of all levels all the time. Beginners say it openly and experienced actors confess it shamefully.

The fact is that you should never need worry about it. Words, even beautiful ones are simply the superficial surface level of our communication. They are a means to an end, a method or strategy, a tactic to help us get what we want.

So it is with the characters whose actions you must carry out to earn your crust.

Let’s face it, most of us will animate a line sufficiently well, even if we don’t understand it. That’s part of our gift, we can bring other people’s words alive.

But if we really want to connect with the role we are playing, we need understanding. Understanding the line and its context is important because looking at the ‘why?’ helps us make our connection to the ‘how’.

Why does your character speak? Mamet says that we ‘always say something designed to get what we want”. Our desire drives us towards getting what we want and getting what we want, achieving our goal or reaching out target becomes our task. Whenever an obstacle arises and confronts our pathway to the target, IT becomes our new task.

If you know why the character speaks, you can examine what method or tactics they use to get what they want.

That’s half the battle. That’s taking action, or acting if you will.

But the performance of a role is not just action but reaction and action based in reaction to the actions of the other actors in your scene. In other words, it’s not just working out what to do but placing that within the physical world of the scene.

The scene exists on two levels,:the first is the literary/book/play level with the words given by the dramatist and then the second physical, tangible world of two real people (actors) standing opposite each other dealing with the truth of the moment.

So how do you say the line? First establish the why, this is based in the script and then that leads you to the how, based on a combination of the character’s goal in the scene with dealing with the behaviour of the real human being opposite.

Then you instinctively know how to say the line and never need to ask the question again.