YOU ARE THE CHARACTER

“I am not this character.”

“I had better become this character or I will fail.”

“How can I trick them into thinking I am this character.”

“I don’t know how to be this character.”

“Another actor is more this character than I am.”

If you have ever had a thought like these, you are in good company.

I believe it is this way of thinking that most stands in an actor’s way.

The good news is, there is a simple remedy. You must change the way you think about the “character”. And here’s how:

You ARE the character. You may not be the only person to have played this role, you may not be the person who eventually gets the job, you may not even be the person who you would most visualize in this role, BUT when you are playing the scene, YOU ARE THE CHARACTER.

In a scene, the character is YOU under those circumstances, and with those thoughts and desires.

The character magically exists in the scene, and will appear through whoever’s tool is performing the scene. The character will look, behave and respond differently depending on whose vessel it is being channeled through. The only thing that can stop this wonderful process, is if the actor doing the scene doesn’t believe that he/she is the character. That actor will then try to “prove” to the audience that he is the character, and this will block the character from truly appearing.

When many actors get a scene, they envision the character as sitting just to the right of them. “This character is not me”, they think. “How can I become this character?”

As soon as you do this, set the character outside yourself, you build an invisible brick wall between you and the character. Nothing can penetrate it, and nothing will be felt, by either you or the audience. You will spend the scene chasing after the character.

Now imagine putting your hands around the legs of the character sitting beside you, and just slide him right over towards you, until you and the character occupy the exact same space. This is the only place that the character can truly live. His breath must be your breath. His heart beating must be your heart beating. Don’t worry if it’s right, just accept that it is.

As a performer, you are an artist. Just like a painter. A painter’s tool is his brush. And your tool is “yourself”. So if you are not using your “tool”, then you cannot allow your art to happen.

So what causes actors to put the character outside themselves? I believe it is the thought “I am not enough”. That thought puts a wall up between you and the character. Even though that wall is imaginary, it feels impenetrable.

We think, “I need to become this character”, which feels impossible and causes panic, while the truth is that we already are the character if we would just allow it.

You must trust that you are interesting enough onstage without embellishment. Simply because you are human, you are infinitely interesting. It is always entertaining to see a living, breathing human. But, when you place some false idea of “character” in front of yourself, the audience can’t see through that to the real person. So, essentially the stage is devoid of human life. The scene is dead.

Your mind will fight against simply owning that the character is you. Your insecure ego will think, “But I’m tired today, and I have a headache.”

Well, couldn’t the character also be tired and have a headache today?

Or your ego will say, “But this character is very happy/sad/angry, and I am not.”

But I say to you that there is a little part of yourself that is also happy/sad/angry at this very moment. Simply because you are human, there are seeds of every emotion in your belly at all times. You don’t have to be actively feeling it at the time. The scene will bring it out. (see: THE EMOTIONAL AUDITION)

All you have to do is say, “I’m going to take it from where I am”. Honesty lives in that place, and only from honesty, can more honesty come.

This issue of “character” comes up most often at auditions.

I used to always let the idea of “character” work against me. When I got an audition scene, I would immediately judge whether I was “right” for the part. More often than not, I would deem myself less right for the role than everyone else in the waiting room. I was thinking like a casting director, and not a very nice one. This is what I mean when I say “Don’t cast yourself in a part”. So I would try to pretend that I was the “character” that I thought they were looking for. Ugh!

Our ego wants to view our performance through the eyes of the casting agent. We think, “Others are more right for this than I am.” So we go into “fake it” mode. Once you’re faking it, YOU are out of the equation, and nothing real can happen.

Just tell yourself this, “The important thing is not getting THIS role, but my relationship with this casting director. If this casting director sees that I am an actor who uses myself, and allows real things to happen, then she will bring me in for another role that I am more suited for”.

Don’t be so quick to think that you know what they are looking for. For example, if we see that a role calls for someone to play a “bully”, we immediately think back to the bullies we’ve seen in portrayed in countless films and TV shows. This is called the “cliché”. But often, if the project is a quality one, they may be looking for the unexpected, which is often a much more interesting choice.

I think the little girl in “The Bad Seed” is a far more interesting “bully” than “Frankenstein”. So don’t be so quick to think that someone else would be better than you in a role.

It’s as simple as this:

If you believe you are the character, then you are the character.

If you think you need to pretend or “prove” that you are the character, then you will always be pretending, and nothing real or organic will happen.

The audience is only too happy to accept you as the character. If you quite simply say, “I killed a homeless person today”, then the audience will believe it. By just saying those words, and “owning” it, it will appear completely true to the audience. The audience will project upon you all the details that they believe could make you the kind of person who is crazy enough to do that.

You don’t need to pretend or “show us” that you are crazy or homicidal. If the audience sees you attempting to prove that you are evil enough to do something like that, they will pick up on that and not believe you.

Don’t worry about “playing” the character. The character exists in the material. If you play the material honestly and specifically, the “character” will take care of itself. The specific thoughts, judgments and reactions of the role are what create character. Just get specific with the material and the character just happens.

I learned this at an audition some time ago. Whereas, sometimes in the past I would attempt to layer a character over what I was doing, at this audition I decided not to worry about character and just trust that it would be there.

I trusted that I WAS the man I was playing, and I thought his thoughts, and played the scene honestly and specifically. After which the casting woman said “What an interesting character you created”. Well, I didn’t create it as much as allow it to appear.

Try to look at it this way:

In the case of an audition for HAMLET, it is not the actor who best brings the character of Hamlet to life who books the job, but instead, it is the actor who best plays himself in Hamlet’s specific set of circumstances.

So, no longer entertain the idea that you are “not enough”.

You are enough. Because you are human, you are infinitely interesting and detailed. You share integral qualities with every man who ever lived; kings, soldiers, courtesans and cowboys.

It reminds me of a story from “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment” by Eckhart Tolle:

A beggar had been sitting by the side of a road for over thirty years.

One day a stranger walked by.

“Spare some change?” mumbled the beggar, mechanically holding out his old baseball cap.

“I have nothing to give you,” said the stranger. Then he asked: “What’s that you are sitting on?”

“Nothing,” replied the beggar. “Just an old box. I have been sitting on it for as long as I can remember.”

“Ever looked inside?” asked the stranger.

“No,” said the beggar. “What’s the point? There’s nothing in there.”

“Have a look inside,” insisted the stranger.

The beggar managed to pry open the lid. With astonishment, disbelief, and elation, he saw that the box was filled with gold.

Look inside yourself; you have a treasure within.