Character Development: Director and Actors' take by Cole

You’ll have to forgive me, as writing this post seems almost backwards. In a way, we should be hearing from Jeremy first before jumping into what the performer is supposed to do. It all starts with the text, after all.

That, and I’m fighting being a bit sick with opening my show this weekend.

This weeks topic. Where to begin. John’s already spoken to you as a cinematographer. I suppose I should speak from a director/actor point of view. Jeremy will chime in with writing. I should say that, as a director/actor, the first thing I need to reiterate is that it begins with the script. And that the script directly effects the process of the actor in progress, just as the script in progress is directly effected by what the actor brings to the table. Hopefully Jeremy will talk later with you about what he expected from the actors with the words he wrote, and what surprises the actors gave him that, in turn, changed the words that he wrote.

Given Circumstances

The actors job begins with the text. What is found in the text informs character. And literally, EVERYTHING in the text informs the character. The tempo with which a characters speech is written, what he says about himself, what the writer says about the character in the stage direction, what the other characters say about him, where it says the character is, where he’s coming from, his income, his health, his race, his religion. Careful study can find answers to almost all of these. 

Example: The present time of Separation Anxiety is the morning of Bailey’s funeral. Bailey’s family would be Catholic, no? How much weight you give to this piece of information is up to you. He could be secular, or he could be profound in his faith. It depends on where you want to take the character/performance and production. My observation, as Bailey, was that the funeral makes him Christian. I chose to make his faith more profound than what was originally intended. For the trailer, you’ll see this in John’s framed shot of the crucifix in Bailey’s bedroom, as we see Mr. Palmer discovering the letter, and later in the trailer when we find Bai at the cathedral. This is a perfect example of the text (the funeral) informing the actor (that Bailey was a Catholic) who in-turn informs the director (playing to the profound faith) to inform the writer and the DP (making faith a key player in the script and in the shot.)

It all must be taken in and accounted for. The more that is done, the more truthful the performance. And nothing is more wonderful than a true and specific performance.

There is a common word that often goes along with directors. Write. Directors write. They take text and they work it and re-work it to find out the story that they want to tell. A director, new or old, will always be able to cut his teeth with a new or open bit of dialogue. What the director does with these new words, the backstory, is the director stepping into the role of writer and fills in the gaps, connecting the dots. The focus the story.

Originally, Bai’s role was unfulfilled. We established him as funny. The eclectic one. And we know that he and Quinn are best friends. We know that Quinn is going to an IVY league school on the opposite end of the country. Draw these connections, the polarization of the characters. The distance between them. The status between them (Quinn with his top school, Bai still at home. The way they talk to each other and Quinn’s unavoidably large vocabulary vs. Bai’s use of slang.) To develop Bai’s character more, we have to ask what would draw on that polarization even more so. Obviously, with his eclecticism, his TYPE B personality, and his passion, vs. Quinn’s timidness, it could make sense to make Bai an artist. Here we are, directing...writing backstory and dynamo into a relationship. Drawing on what is already there to make the stakes more staggering and the relationship more starkly evocative.

I said that this blog would be short, and in two points I’ve already come to a page and a half. It’s the text, I’m telling you. It’s barely the tip of the iceberg with it’s information.