How do you get into character?

@Mrgelastic, I assume this paper is for an acting class, and you’ve never acted before?

There’s really not much to say. All it takes is empathy and imagination…

I suggest you do what we italians call “La Supercazzola” (which means you sthart padding the essay with horseshit, tautologies and useless embellishments until you reach the minimum lenght…)

I’m sure they want a detailed response. I’m not an actor, but I’m sure you tap into some sort of empathetic memory, but I would go into great detail about exactly what you’re thinking. If that helps.

I hate when teachers and professors require their students to write long papers when the prompt can be answered in a couple sentences. That might be my number one pet peeve in life. Requesting length over efficiency and directness is really fucking stupid.

This is easy to stretch into four pages—break it down into different genres of performance. For example, preparation for a period piece or Shakespeare should involve research into the time period, such as habits the character would have, ways of standing, moving, etc. Timing of speech is different for different time periods. Contemporary pieces may require ethnographic research to understand the context of the character.

Also dialogue and speech patterns, timing of speech, inflection.

Give examples.

@Facade, I disagree—asking for demonstration of depth of understanding is not stupid. It saves wasting a lot of time in class.

In the case of this question, the intent of the length is to explore the depth of preparation past, “I have talent, I read the script, and get out there and just do it.”

@PandoraBoxx OMG thank you so much that’s a great way to do it :D

@PandoraBoxx Sure, when that’s needed, but a lot of the time, it’s not.

Don’t forget examples. You can spend a page just on examples: “For example, when I played Dr. Van Helsing in Dracula, I…”

For the purposes of this paper I would go with what @PandoraBoxx says. That will fill out four pages nicely.

It would be hard to stretch something like “Well, to play a mentally disturbed bag lady I went to the McDonald’s in WalMart so I could watch them and pick up tips” into four pages.

Removed by me. Misread the question.

remove the mask.

There are two schools of acting: one is Berthold Brecht’s school, which believed in distantiation (“Verfremdungseffekt” as he called it) between the actor and the role. Brecht believed you should study your role dispassionately and act in the third person.

A more common school of thought was the Stanislavski method, which led to the Actor’s Studio (where people like Marilyn Monroe and Marlon Brando came from). It influenced Hollywood and fed it with more and more stars, even to this day. The idea is simple: you become the role. This means that actors become pigeonholed (Monroe never managed to play a sophisticated brunnette, she was always the “dumb sexy blonde” in every movie she ever made). But it also means that casting is simplified. You need someone to play the bad guy? Why not take that bad guy from that other movie? Call up his agent, and there you are. It doesn’t mean that the actor is necessarily a bad person, but that he brings out his bad side every time he has to play that role.

Personally I use Brecht’s method in both theatre and film (I am NOT a professional actor, but I’ve been doing these things for fun over the last few years). I talk to the director, find out what he wants, and then try to do it. If I get it wrong, he shows me, or describes it, and I do it again until I get it right. While I’m talking, I am myself. But I can switch in and out of roles in less than a second. The word “action” instantly transforms me into that character I’m supposed to play, then the word “cut” brings me back. I could actually be joking backstage the one second, then go on stage and have a fight (in my last role I played Achilles) and then go backstage again and continue joking.

I’m sorry I cannot really explain how it’s done, I hope the theory might help though. For me, it just happens automatically. I don’t even put much effort into it (except when I’m trying hard not to laugh when I’m playing a serious role and something funny just happened).

My only advice (if you have time) is to join an amateur theatre group and see it happen during rehearsal. It’s a fun activity on top of everything else :)

@Jack79…omg thank you

I don’t see getting into character as a performance thing so much as it is a rehearsal thing. And that’s a bunch of stuff – thinking about how the character moves, what’s the character’s reason for saying each line, resenting the other characters if that’s appropriate, lusting after them if that is.

You practice being the character – anyone with a little imagination can see dozens of ways to do this. If another actor changes the way they do something, how does your character feel about that? If you can answer that, they you’ll know how they would respond.

Now, when it’s performance time, it’s about remembering that state – just being alone and quiet, or being energized, or whatever the character needs to come out.

Then when you walk on stage, you’re already in the character, and (if you have the mechanics down) you can behave spontaneously as the character, and as the character at that moment in the play. Because in real theater, the character at the beginning of the play, is not the same as the one at the end.

Hm. Maybe this is all different for camera actors. Anyone have that view?

I use roles in comedy, and to be other than yourself, you must have a well developed character in mind or allow growing into one. The same is true in fictional writing.

In various ways you must describe and feel the persona.
What is the voice?
What is the mood?
What is the energy level?
What is the situation and setting?

You need a starting statement sometimes in the desired voice.

To really pin it, you need a mental picture. For comedy it’s interwoven with the tale.

An actor/comedian is a story teller, with the addition of voice, and movement.

Can you imagine yourself as the character. What makes them tick?

If you’ve never done it, definately explore creative writing – see the other half of the character formation.

The tired old barber shuffles up the snow covered steps to his shop, replacing the scarf that the wind has blown away from his face, a leathery countenence revealed. With gnarled hands he fumbles with his skeleton key as a horse drawn carriage rolls by.

“Damn!” he grunts hoarsely as the key snaps in the lock.

BTW – i’m not an actor – I just think a lot.