After studying many techniques, I'm heavily involved in making up my own process that uses tools from writing fiction and universal archetypes, but here are the tools and techniques that served me best along the way so far.
1. Breathe Like Them: by observing others' breathing, even in performance, one can attempt to replicate their breathing patterns, and experience all new physical-emotional sensations, unlocking a great part of what it is to live in that character.
2. Build Your Neutral Gear: Discussed by Graham Dixon, "neutral gear" is an exercise wherein you stand as neutral as possible, and by making slight changes to balance in each direction, notice the mental changes that accompany each new "stance". After practicing this, you are better able to differentiate character behavior from your own. Other things that I believe make you more neutral and thus better able to inhabit various characters are Bill Connington's Alexander Technique meditation (basically a body scan and journal entry), Alexander lie-down (supported floor rest intended to reset and rest the body), and Checkhov's four movements of molding, floating, flying and radiating.
3. Learn the Archetypes: If you're reading Jung to learn these you are in for a journey. Just as important as the technical understanding of archetypes for an actor are the sense impressions you get from them. In other words, what does each mean to you? What makes some feel more important than others? Unlocking these answers may be key to understanding your niche, your dream roles, etc.
4. Comic Toolbox Method: According to John Vorhaus, characters come in four basic pieces, especially comic ones. They are comic perspective (overriding view), exaggeration, flaws, and humanity (some endearing quality that helps us identify with them). I use this to think up characters and to interpret ones I'm assigned to play.
5. Protagonist Embodies the Theme: A Steven Pressfield Principle, Steve argues that in a well written story the struggles of the protagonist are embedded into the theme of the film. They reflect each other, provoke the central conflict, and their resolutions are intertwined. Asking questions can help uncover these: What is the story trying to say? Why was this particular character chosen to tell this tale? What about them played a part in causing this conflict? What about them needed to change in order to resolve it?
6. Full Psychological Gesture vs Buried PG: One of the key aspects of the Chekhov technique is his psychological gesture, wherein you find the body position that evokes the strongest feeling of the character and depicts their essence. In trying to exercise this somewhat confusing aspect of the technique it occurred to me that I was being the character as if they had nothing to hide, didn't need tact in their interactions, and decided it wasn't true to the way we communicate. So I'd rehearse the scene in full out essence of the character, and then I'd run it with that self buried, restricted, wanting to come through but only achieving a fraction of it, depending on what stage of their arc they're in.
7. Put the vocab in emotional terms. Redefine boring acting class words with thinking from your own life. Something like need instead of objective, and fear instead of obstacle. And then define all the pain points for that character. Sometimes I'll list ones from my person life too, to find the differences. How these words that are supposed to describe emotional terms got sterilized in the first place has to do with history and the political climate in which Stanislavsky's books were written.
8. Character Alignments: this is my writing partner Josh's favorite, and is particularly useful if the story's theme centers around morality. The alignment puts characters on a spectrum from most chaotic and evil to lawful and good. It's a favorite of game designers and D&D players, and is fun to read just to know it.
What tools or processes do you use in creating a character? Do you know what your favorite actors use? If anyone knows what Benicio del Toro does tell me. I was on one film with him and did not get the chance to ask! Anyway, get at me for character discussion, whether you are working on a film or writing one with me in mind ;)
#acting #practice #rehearsal #studynotes #character
