Substitution and the Art of Acting

Characters can be murderers, soldiers, superheroes, queens, nurses and anything else out of our own experience. To play a role successfully, it is thought that we must have something in common with the role, that we must identify with them. People believe that we must be able to find the character in ourselves. That’s why actors ‘go to dark places’ in the name of character identification.  

That’s the logic. But personally, I think it’s bullshit. And it doesn’t really help actors, or if it does, it isn’t psychologically healthy - and perhaps it’s unnecessary. 

The acting teacher Uta Hagen suggested that instead we find ourselves in the character, we use personal substitutions for incidents in these character’s lives. She suggests that trying to appreciate Blanche DuBois from her own position was impossible, she was down to earth and Dubois wasn’t in her realm of experience. I admire this admission that actors cannot realistically hope to find the character in themselves. It’s a very positive realisation. 

Hagen suggests we substitute something that has a similar essence and then accept them within the fictional circumstances. So, if in the scene, a character calls her character a bitch, but she isn’t offended by that word, she imagines someone calling her another name, and using her imagination accepts that, and acts from that. She substitutes the thing in the scene for something familiar and personal. Her substitution helps you believe in the imaginary situation. 

I would suggest that substitution is the best way to play without identifying with the role. But I think it’s something simpler and yet more essential that should be the focus.  

If you are playing a scene where the mother of two children is begging for forgiveness for murdering them - you do not have a life experience to cover this. So, I would suggest you start from begging for forgiveness. What’s that like to you? Who would you have to beg forgiveness from? What would you have to do to have to beg forgiveness from your husband, your mother, your wife, your best friend? This will activate you, not to believe in the imaginary, but to behave in a way that is in line with the essence of the character’s psychological actions.

You are playing Hamlet, he cannot decide whether to kill Claudius or not. You may or may not have this experience, but we don’t need your experience. What we need is for you to be weighing up a difficult decision, or persuading something to ‘do the right thing’. Don’t seek for a real experience to parallel this, you may not have one. Instead, imagine. Imagine that you are weighing up a difficult decision. Observe your behaviour. Now bring this to the scene with Hamlet.

You are Clarice Starling, you are entering the facility where Hannibal Lector is kept. You are driven by needing to belong, and you are being given a chance to belong to the FBI. If you succeed in this mission, you may belong soon. When you arrive, you are treated like dirt, you are leered at by prisoners and you are toyed with by Lector. You want respect in the scene. You certainly don’t have these life experiences. But can you imagine trying to impress someone? Bring this to the scene. Try to get their respect like you would try in your substitution. 

In Practical Aesthetics, this is called Acting - As-If. It substitutes the imaginary world of the film or play with the same psychological action from your own world. It’s imaginary still, it’s not emotion memory. However, it does mean that you can play any type of role believably by burrowing into the psychological action in the scene, not trying to play elements of the character.