An Actor Hub Guide to Building a Character

If you ask yourself this question about you, think of all the detail you could give me. You would have memories you could tell me. Who you parents are, where you grew up, in what kind of a house. You would tell me who your friends were, who they are now. You would know your first kiss, your first job, your first grief. You would tell me funny stories, sad stories, anecdotes, influences, likes and dislikes. All of these experiences shape who you are, they are there in your subconscious and they help you to ‘just be’.

When you approach a character on stage or screen I think it is so important that you know as much about the character as you can, you should know them almost as well as you know yourself. Once you know them inside and out then you can ‘just be’ as them. Don’t expect this to happen throughout the rehearsals, this should be your homework as an actor. You should know those anecdotes, the memories and the backstory of your character as if they were your own.

First thing you need to do is arm yourself with your script and a nice pad and pen (I say nice because I always think it is great to keep your ‘character notes’ so you can revisit them years later. I also think its good to treat your research with some love and respect!) Write down what facts you know from the character description and also look at things your character says about themself and what others say about him or her. Your next job is research. Look in depth at the history, politics, religious beliefs, culture, theatre, food, fashion, films, music of the time the play was written or is set. Use museums, the internet, libraries, art galleries, You Tube, films of the era, photographs or paintings. Your research should be fun, approach it with a sense of adventure not one of hardwork. Fill your notepad with images, not facts and figures. Keep it as visceral as possible.

Now you need to fill in the gaps and create your stories, your anecdotes, your backstory. This is where you can use your own imagination. An actor’s freedom with imagination and creativity is one of their most important gifts, do not underestimate it.

It is also important to know that your imagination alone without your scriptwork and research is not enough. Nor is research and reading going to be enough without imagination.

It is vital that you know not just the geography of where your character is, but also your relationship with that geography. In your script there may be a detailed description of where you are, but it doesn’t tell you how you feel about that space, that room, that house. Think about how differently you behave in a room if you have only just entered it for the first time, or how you act if it is your room; one you have lived in for years. Your relationship with your environment affects the way you use yourself.

Also think about the geography of where you are. A person from a cold northern climate will behave quite differently than someone from a hot Mediterranean climate and culture.

You need to know when the play is set, this could be determined by the playwright or the directors vision. You would certainly ‘hold’ yourself very differently, move and express yourself differently according to the period of the piece, people in Downton Abbey behave very differently to people in Big Brother!

You also need an understanding of actually ‘when is it’ as in the season, month, day of the week. We behave differently during a chilly November than we do on a hot muggy day in June.

Think about real life, whatever you have been up to before you ‘make an entrance’ affects how you ‘make that entrance’. The same should be true of your character. It shouldn’t look like you have just stepped on from the wings (even if that is the truth). You must know your previous circumstances as they will condition your mood. The director might help you with this, or the script might point you in the right direction.

On television you often have to do a lot of this ‘homework’ for yourself, but it is vital that you know where you have just come from and what have you been doing, and it is always fun to invent it: have you just come from brushing your teeth, from a boozy lunch, from an argument with ‘the missus’, from a sticky tube journey?

Its that biggie, the question that all ‘non-actors’ will mock us for ….. “What’s My Motivation?”

However, this really is the key question. You should never ever walk on with the intention to just ‘play a scene’. You should always have a purpose, an intention. The overall objective (action) might be quite clear from the script, but the ‘activity’ (your moment to moment purpose) can change from scene to scene and from moment to moment, and it will affect everything you do.

If you don’t have anything to say during a scene then give yourself a physical action or purpose, are you intently listening to what is being said or are you trying to remove a splinter from your thumb or work out a crossword puzzle? Have something to do when you are not engaged in conversation and then you will have a ‘life on stage’ you don’t ever want to ‘just be acting’

I guess in real life we don’t always have a strong justification for everything we are doing, but theatre isn’t real life and if it was it could be quite dull.

Most theatre and plays are offering a slightly heightened version of reality and because of this you need strong justifications for your acting which will give you this extra 10% needed for stage acting.

Naturalistic performances and a lot of television you won’t need so strong a justification, but it is very handy for sitcom acting and most classical and musical theatre stage work.

The ‘Now’ gives you the immediacy and drive needed for any drama. It is crucial that as an actor you now why your motivation is to do what you are doing right now. It is what will drive the action. You need to be in the here and now, not dealing with something your character is desiring in the future or in the past but in the here and now of the play or script.

Why should an audience bother with two hours of drama if you are not that bothered. The stakes need to be high. Otherwise, so what? If the high stakes are not clear to you from the play then use your imagination and your research to create some high stakes, otherwise it will come across that you are not bothered by the outcome.

This takes us back to the ‘moment to moment’ purposes mentioned in question five. Your smaller actions are called your ‘activity’, this is how are you trying to affect the other person by what you are saying.

You want your fellow actor to feel something because of what you are saying and how you are saying it. This is your ‘activity’.

This question is where you really begin to break down your script. You must know how you play a line as opposed to how you say a line – there is a BIG difference.

To break down your script look for each moment your character has a change of thought, break the script down into chunks and for each chunk find a transitive verb, which is a verb that is active such as: to excite, to flirt, to beg, to get sympathy. It is important that you always remember that this is not about how your character is feeling, but about how they want the other person to feel. You want to make the other character feel something which will probably help to further your overall action.

At this stage you should have an understanding of your character and what makes them tick and how they generally behave so when you are choosing actions it is important that you choose activities and actions based on your character’s behaviour rather than the obvious activities that the line might suggest. You always have the flexibility to change your choices during a rehearsal, nothing is ever set in stone.

This whole process will be time consuming but stick with it. You will be creating such light and shade in your performance, and also a huge amount of depth. This is all about allowing you to be free and truthful in your performance and characterisation, it means that your emotion is real and internal and not a dreadful external ‘playing’ of emotion.

When you are playing a character it is important that you have thought about their struggle, both internally and externally. You need to have an inner and an outer obstacle. The outer obstacle is the resistance to achieving your overall purpose, this is very often the other character. The inner obstacle is always more interesting, it is your inner conflict, the problem you are trying to overcome. Think about yourself, in real life, there is something you will be fighting against, an inner obstacle.

Once you plant a character’s inner obstacle you will find that you have something to fight against in the scene and it will make your characterisation a fully rounded creation.