To kick off this fancy new blog I've started, I would like to share with you all my six essential questions an actor should ask themselves when taking on a role in a production.
1. Who am I?
2. What are the circumstances?
3. What are my relationships?
4. What do I want?
5. What is my obstacle?
6. What do I do to get what I want?
1. Who am I?
The most important thing about your character is their identity. Are they confident? Are they arrogant? Are they self conscious? Do they dress to appeal others? How does your character perceive themselves? How do others perceive your character? All of these questions and more are crucial to defining your character, therefore asking yourself the simple question of, "Who am I?" can make or break your character.
2. What are the circumstances?
When trying to delve deeper into your character, you must ask yourself where your character is physically and what is going on around them. Everything from the city they are in, to what season it is, is incredibly important when trying to better understand your character. By comprehending what is going on around your character, you can understand why they act the way they do and give them more on stage personality.
3. What are my relationships?
You must have an understanding of your character's relationships in order to portray them the way they were written. It is not only important to understand your character's relationship with the people around them, but also the objects and setting around them. Does your character enjoy being where they are? Are they chasing after something on stage? What about someone on stage?
4. What do I want?
Without goals, your character is nothing more than a prop. You must establish your character's immediate objective, as well as what they are chasing after in the long run. The audience must be able to relate to your character and be able to understand why they are on stage. By having a firm goal for your character, you are giving them a reason to be there.
5. What is my obstacle?
Once a goal has been established for your character, you then must figure out what is preventing your character from achieving said goal. Is there a physical barrier? A mental barrier? By figuring out what is stopping your character from getting what they are after, you can develop their personality around that obstacle and portray how it affects them on stage.
6. What do I do to get what I want?
Now that you know what is stopping your character from achieving their goal, how are they going to overcome that obstacle? What changes are you going to apply to their dialogue, emotion, and physical stance to help your character get past the obstacle in their way? Just by giving your character motive and drive, it also furthers how they are portrayed on stage.
I hope you all enjoyed these six questions that are necessary to further understand your character and give them more personality on stage. Next time you are in a show, please take a moment or two to ask yourself these questions and see how much it influences your character!
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