Understanding where you are in your journey — both as the artist and in the discovery and building of the character — is key to achieving the maximum goal you wish to attain, and the maximum speed in which to attain it.
Work through the four parts in order. In Part Three you can answer the 13 Questions for the character you’re building right now — sign in and every character workbook you build is saved to your own private library.
The Five Stages
of the Actor
Your art is a never-ending journey — an infinite loop of stages as you grow. Knowing which stage you are standing in tells you what work to do next.
Understanding who you are
Your work starts by seeking out who you are as an artist, and what challenges you face with your craft. What is holding you back, and why?
Learning what works for you
Blindly copying someone else’s predetermined set of rules is like copying an answer in class. You may get it right that time, but you won’t know what it means — and you’ll never be able to repeat it.
Active incorporation
You just gained a huge amount of knowledge from stage one and stage two. What should you do first? What do you do last? What do you do with all this newfound information?
Becoming efficient
Assembling all your knowledge and your technique to best accomplish your objectives. This is where you realize your true base.
Use your base. Learn more.
Now that you realize your base, you realize your art is a never-ending journey. How do you keep that moving, keep it fresh, never becoming stagnant or boring?
Base
Understanding, learning and incorporating assemble into efficiency — and efficiency is the base. Then it starts again, one level up.
The Five Step
Technique
The Script
If you don’t understand what is going on, or what the writer is trying to get across, it is difficult to understand the character at all. Same for the character: if you don’t understand why you are saying what you are saying, neither will anyone else.
The Character
Every character must start somewhere, and for you that is always going to be you. Don’t run away from it — embrace it. Your personal empathy and view of the world is what gives your performance its uniqueness. Connect.
The Execution
Making choices and having them work seamlessly with each other — emotionally, intellectually and physically — is essential to how you are coming across. Are we seeing what you are feeling and thinking?
The Change
Acting is a collaborative effort that involves many people. Having your character be bold and unwavering, as well as able to change in an instant, is key to working with the creative minds you aspire to. Your job is to bring a story to life — are you telling the right story?
Self-Trust
If you don’t commit to your choices — if you don’t trust your ability to complete and live through your decisions — there will be hesitation, and that will never lead to your best work.
The 13 Questions
There is no right answer. There is no perfection. There are only choices and decisions of what you choose to share. Remember, the bullseye is not always in the center.
Who are they?
Before you connect to a character you need to understand who they are. You are discovering a character just as much as creating one. What was the writer thinking when they created them, and what is the director’s vision?
Who are you?
If you have not taken the time to figure out who your character is, even at its most basic level, you will fail.
Where are you?
The place you are is a character in itself. You are never by yourself — you are always in the world.
When are you?
Time period is often overlooked, and it will always change how the character looks and feels about dialogue and events.
What do I want?
Objective, intention, goal — use whatever term you want. Are they blatant, hidden, subconscious? Knowing what you want is necessary, but knowing how it is to be perceived is equally important.
What is my destination?
Not where you are going physically, but in the scene. Do you achieve your objective? Do you fail? Knowing where the scene ends allows your pacing and transitions to be natural and fluid. Don’t ignore it.
How do you feel?
Am I in a good mood, am I angry — does that change the way you interact with anyone? Your emotional and intellectual state of mind always impacts how you come across to others.
Why are you here?
As we live our lives we have goals — sometimes as simple as getting a drink of water. We never ask why, because they are inherent actions we perform every day. With characters, you must.
Where am I going?
What are you doing after the scene ends? The human mind can’t comprehend an end in life. Having what you do after the scene, even if it is not in the script, brings you closer to the reality of the world.
Where have I been?
The character’s life did not begin with the scene, or with the script. Knowing where you are coming from helps you connect more to the character on the other questions.
Who are my interactions?
Are they friends, family, foe? Just like in life, the people around your character are not only present to you when they are physically in front of you. Know your emotions and thoughts for them.
What made you the person you are today?
Your bio, or life story, allows you to move through the scene effortlessly — answering all the questions you have with building reason, as opposed to mismatched random emotions.
Confirmation
Looking back at all the questions, answers and choices — does it reflect the character you want to get across? Is that the character the writer and director are looking for? Confirm. Confirm. Confirm.
The Five
Principles
Sometimes we fall down the rabbit hole, going so deep no one would understand. Other times we feel like we have barely scratched the surface. The Five Principles help you look back at your discovery and the intent of your portrayal, and make sure you have achieved the balance you are looking for.
Your Pace
If the objective is the music you are playing, then the destination is the metronome that tells you the beat in which to play it.
Your Core
Subtlety is strength. The deeper the emotion you create, the less you have to give for it to be impactful.
Your Connection
Trying to create solely from imagination can be based upon fear of your past, present and future reality. Don’t be afraid to use the things that you covet to create the things that you need.
Your Journey
A character that never learns is unrelatable — one note, and dismissed easily. We base everything in life on history; why would you do anything differently for your character?
Your Struggle
Dialogue is the easiest way to tell a story, but stories are most often told in what is not said — what is seen but not heard, what is felt but has not been expressed. Don’t ignore your physicality or your energy. It is what makes us yearn to know more.
The Artist’s Playhouse technique is based upon empathy — understanding and connecting to the character based upon your life and your view of the world.
What would have had to have happened to me, in my life, as me, for me to behave and think in the manner of this character?
It’s a mixture of intellectual and emotional discovery that creates a symbiotic merger of the two parts of the brain that drive all people.
The Artist’s Playhouse