The Inner Life of the Character

For the audience, the inner life of the character is what makes them fascinating to watch, what’s going on in their head? Why do they behave that way towards the other character, what is it they’re trying to do?

For the actor, finding the inner life of the character is about discovering what the character’s pressing need is in the scene and translating that into a mindset that you can adopt. You do not need to think your character’s thoughts, the inner life of the character is fiction, and therefore locked away from you, but you do need to find a real-life, achievable way to behave with the same mindset as the character in that particular scene.

When we find the inner life of the character through their mindset, we can begin to embody the character for the audience, we cannot ever embody the character for ourselves, we are who we are, any transformation is purely from the perspective of the audience, but by embodying the mindset of their psychological action in the scene, we can bring that character to life for the audience.

Want to find out more about the Mindset Acting Technique? Check out this previous blog.