I was having dinner with a couple directors tonight and we started talking about character motivation and how to teach that to young actors. They said their acting coach taught them “If you don’t know what you want – get off the stage” or “If you don’t know why you’re on stage, get off.”
I love that. It’s so simple. If you don’t understand your character’s motivation, then you cannot adequately add to the movement or motivation of the play. The last play I worked on, the director would say “Don’t move unless you know why you’re moving” – another great way of relaying a similiar thought.
If you brush your hair, why are you doing it? I see often times actors that don’t know what to do with themselves – they will often just thrust their hands around while they talk. We usually don’t naturally do that too much (well…..maybe if you’re Italian!)
The reason I brought up motivation with them, is that as a young actor I didn’t understand motivation. Music is my thing, so usually I have a reason for every note. I had great music instructors. In composition my teacher used to pick random notes on my score and ask “why is that there”? If I couldn’t answer that question, I had to erase it. I think this kind of methodical training is fantastic when starting out. Always remember – you have to learn the rules before you can break them. But when it came to acting I didn’t draw the parallel.
For me as a young actor (and I feel funny writing that, because I am certainly no actor, but was in many plays as a child, including a paid professional musical), I knew who my character was, but I never really connected it in my head to integrate that background into my own, and to also use my own personality as development for how I would react to things. I mistakenly thought that if I didn’t have lines, my job was to be unnoticed until my lines came. I moved where the directors told me to, without really understanding the depth of my character.
So know who you are, know why are you doing what you are doing, and understand your character’s past as if it was your own – easier yet: pull from your own experience so your character becomes real.
Just what you needed, acting advice from a non-actor.
🙂