this week we're talking about the mechanics of characterization the actors divide itself why I can never truly be myself in performance and much more right after this [Music] hi the inspired actor here if you're new to this channel we are dedicated to helping actors become better artists through quick lessons like these and other videos about theater film and the actors life if you want to see more videos like these go ahead and subscribe and don't forget to hit that like button and share this video with your colleagues thanks a lot how do actors create characters
do we become totally different people what happens to us when we act these are questions that many actors ask and depending on who you are and what acting technique you ascribe to the answers can vary widely how I am about to describe the process was first put forth by legendary acting teacher Michael check-off in his lectures to his students and can be found in his book to the actor I'm going to paraphrase his teachings a lot as well as add my own thoughts on the subject and I'll try to keep it as simple as possible
but it still gets pretty heady so buckle in let's get some basic stuff out of the way first an actor does not and cannot actually become a different person when they perform if you truly believe that you are someone else then you are not acting you are having some kind of psychotic break I cannot be removed from my physical and psychological self when I act I am stuck in the body of a large middle-aged man without the help of a lot of CGI and I do mean a lot I will struggle to convincingly play a
young Hamlet or Scarlett O'Hara or Troy from fences actors like to think that they could play any role given the chance and while it's true that great actors can inhabit the mind and soul of any character being able to convincingly play a role depends not just on the actors talent but on whether or not they match the physical look of the director or casting directors vision for that character file this under for fair kama life is not but this is why so much of casting is dependent on whether you physically look like the role being
cast according to the director or casting director and not just on your talent level in film this becomes even more of a consideration because a the camera picks up everything and be casting is so competitive that the casting director can be as specific as they like in hiring for example if the casting director is looking for a middle-aged Mediterranean man then I could be sure to go to an audition with a hundred middle-aged Mediterranean men all vying for the same part as me however it would be a mistake to think that even though I am
playing a person who looks roughly like me that I can only play my self when I act this is because what we define as self is much more complex than we give it credit there are multiple knees depending on context and situation how I act and react in one context may be very very different in another concerning creating a character Chekhov talked about the concept of the higher and lower self or higher and lower ego the lower self is basically everything we know to be us our likes dislikes and personality when we speak of being
ourselves than what we are really talking about is our lower self when the great acting teacher Stanislavski talked about the magic if if this were to happen to me what would I do the eye that he is speaking of is or at least has come to mean that lower self the higher self resides in what Carl Jung describes as the collective unconscious or what Plato referred to as the Platonic ideal this is the world of objective imagination where the archetypes of ideas reside in other words ideas of and by themselves are pure objective things which
do not belong to one individual but to everyone let's use the concept of ball for example when we say the word ball we immediately have an objective idea of the concept that the word ball represents then we as individuals interpret that objective idea through the lens of our lower selves a personality history and so on forming a picture in our minds that is specific only to us when I mentioned ball you may have pictured a tennis ball for example because you love tennis or it could be a bowling ball or a golf ball it depends
on you and your own creative individuality for a more complex example let's look at Hamlet most people have some idea of who Hamlet is even if it's just the to be or not to be guy the idea or archetype of this character is a pure thing living somewhere in the æther of our collective imaginations everyone who reads the play has a feeling for who that person is and this feeling of the character exists objectively apart from our individual selves as a result a group of people can talk about the character of Hamlet and we'll all
know what each other is talking about however when we begin to make this intangible feeling tangible by picturing Hamlet's face or other physical or psychological details of who Hamlet maybe then we interpret these ideas through the prism of our lower selves our experiences our psychology our unique personality this is why my Hamlet would be completely different from anyone elses Hamlet and why acting is so fun and rewarding our job is to make the intangible tangible by creating the character that exists psychologically and physically in the world of the play or movie by virtue of the
fact that I am different from anyone else on earth I can create a character completely unique in interpretation and still look and feel truthful to myself and to the audience as long as I am truthful to the story whether I am a woman a man black white or green I can create a unique and individual Hamlet that will be truthful engaging and dynamic this is also why if I created a characterization that was completely untrue to the objective idea of Hamlet's may be a confident and decisive Hamlet whose apathetic to learning the truth about his
father then the audience might recognize this as being untrue and dislike Michael all people are born with an innate instinct or truth we know it when we see it but we can rarely articulate what that truth is this truth is connected to the world of objective imagination and it is what we aspire to when producing any piece of art our higher self is the part of us that we only know when we are truly open and receiving inspiration from the collective unconscious your higher self is that artist within you marshalling all your creative forces and
the raw materials of your personality physicality and background to create your own unique interpretation of the character Stephen King for example describes his writing process as simply watching his characters and writing down what they do he says he is often surprised by the choices they make and thinks of himself as only the narrator Michelangelo famously said that his statues were already in the stone and his job was simply to free them many artists of all kinds describe their process in the same way so let me explain the mechanics of building a character like this our
lower self is our ordinary everyday self it is comprised of our personality our experiences and our genetic makeup as artists we strive for a level of inspired creativity that transcends the everyday and attains a level of truth perhaps a higher truth that we recognize as great art the true artist does not try to be mediocre or passable the true artist tries to create an exceptional piece of art in our case performance that touches the hearts and minds of our audience in an unforgettable way when we are fully engaged in the acting process what actors sometimes
refer to as being in the pocket or the zone the creative impulses that reside in the world of objective imagination the higher ego mold your body from within it effortlessly moves your body speaks with your voice and stirs your imagination increasing your interactivity it also grants you truthful feelings makes you original and inventive and awakens and maintains your ability to improvise as your character however as I said before no actor can completely be their character wherever there is creativity there must be control as well or else you can be a danger to yourself or others
I cannot be expected to execute a well choreographed fight scene or dance number if I am so immersed by my character that I have allowed it to take over I might really hurt someone I have shared the stage with people who have allowed this to happen and believe me it's not fun I must be both fully engaged with my characterization and with myself as an actor remembering all of my lines blocking and stage business using my creative imagination I must also be in the audience observing myself on stage or on film and making sure that
the viewer or spectator is fully receiving and grasping the inner life of my character I should also be empathically connected with my scene partner making sure that I am in a state of full communication with them at every moment in the scene finally I need to be conscious of the story as a whole and my place within that story I cannot be solely focused on my character so that I lose sight of the fact that I am part of an ensemble of actors a director designers and technical personnel presenting a unified story to our audience
this division of consciousness is the meat and potatoes of acting and is only possible through connection with the actors higher self the higher self acts as the ringmaster aware of each and every element that goes into making a truthful dynamic and clear portrayal of our characters that being said understand that most of these divided selves should be working in the background you should only be aware of them when you need them your scene partner drops a line your actor self should come to the rescue the rest of the time that part of the self can
work inconspicuously in the background guiding you using the muscle memory of rehearsals and experience once we leave so called real life and enter into performance and storytelling then we can no longer simply be our lower self anyway it's not possible even if I were performing a one-man show written by me about my actual life experiences I would still not be free to be totally and completely myself by virtue of the fact that I performing I would be playing a character serving the larger story as a whole I would not be free to act completely as
I would in real life because I have to serve the story being told even playing myself in the context of story I am still only a character as a result when thinking in terms of stanislavski's magic if if this should happen to me what would I do Chekhov felt that the real question to ask is if this should happen to my character how would my character behave under these circumstances we find this character by using our higher ego to build a completely unique and tangible creation that is true to the story being told of course
this is just a description of the mechanics of characterization there are many many different paths one can take to the character itself but that is for my future videos do you have a different approach to characterization are you completely confused by what I just said I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments don't forget to Like and subscribe and I'll see you guys later
