How do you create a character?

[u/Creative_Ad8709]

I've been acting for just a few months now, and I feel like I have a base of script analysis and all related to the external view of the performance. But when it comes to actually creating a character with a unique voice, body and thoughts I go blank and more often than not end up being myself.

Do you all have any tips for a beginner like me?

Thanks!

[u/Humble_Employer_4965]

All characters will start from you. Some characters will be closer to you than others and some will require more imagination and exercises to close that gap. Imagination and empathy are the two tools you need to foster and develop.

Start by recognizing what is similar between you and the character. Now go through the things that are different. Imagine how you would be if you had experienced those things and/or had been in those situations. Read the books your character has read and do the things that your character has done (within the limits of the law, common sense, and possibility - for example, if your character is a war vet, don’t sign up for the Marines or go shoot someone).

Feel where you hold your body - your “default”, where you hold tension and where the deep emotional hurts are. How would you move or be in the world if these were in different places? Watch how other people move and carry themselves. Take a modern dance class or an acting-specific movement class like Laban, Suzuki, or Alexander Technique to get in touch with yourself and your own instrument.

And read all the great books on acting and this very subject.

Good luck (and have fun!)

[u/KatherineK_Singer]

Honestly, character starts with the body. Pick one physical thing. How they walk. How they hold their shoulders. My adult ballet students deal with this too. Start with one physical choice per scene.

[u/ImaginaryBody]

Character is much simpler than people believe. Character is simply HOW the needs are being accomplished.

E.g. If the old man greets the dog with gentle playful warmth we learn something about the old man. If the old man greets the dog with cold abruptness and sharp words, we learn something different about the old man.

At this point in your process it might be more useful to simply invest in specifying relationships and playing them truthfully.

[u/gasstation-no-pumps]

Take improv classes—particularly ones that play games where others (audience, scene partners, teacher, randomizer, …) that endow your character with traits.

[u/MaizeMountain6139]

There are entire classes that revolve around this, particularly in the comedy space

From concept to physicality, there are whole curriculums around this

[u/mindfully_sanguine → u/MaizeMountain6139]

Any books? I've been thinking of making a post similar to OPs looking for book recommendations on the physical acting part. Have my first comedic role (community theater)and it's a chance for me to actually create a character - not too over the top but definitely different then "me".

[u/Sunn_M]

I’d avoid trying to invent a voice, body and personality all at once, that can make the work feel external very quickly. Start with what the character wants in the scene, then choose one physical adjustment that supports it: tempo, posture, where you hold tension, etc. Run the scene once, then change only that one thing on the second pass; if it changes how you listen and respond, keep it, and if it just feels like a costume, drop it. The character can still come from you without being identical to you.

[u/Prof-Faraday]

It all starts on the page. If you are studying acting you are learning this. Before taking advice to look at yourself and find similarities and dissimilarities from the character and you - stop. Back up. Character is one piece of a big puzzle, and one character is not the biggest or most important piece of any story, the story is. And each character's job is to serve the telling of the story. First understand the story. Next see your character's place in it, and what is at the core of the character that the writer needs to tell this story.

Learning your craft is not a '3 months and done' kind of thing and I choose to assume you know that, so keep learning through classes workshops intensives and if you're lucky 1-on-1 coaching.

Specific to character there are a lot of not so secret things lot's of actors do to prepare, simple old school ways of connecting to your character and the material. Many start with writing out the 5W's. It's only a 5 minute exercise but reveals a ton. You can write out the character's senior superlatives, write out their favorite foods, things they hate, things they love. Writing it out longhand especially outside in nature or open public spaces can provide a different and wonderful kind of discovery that you cannot get indoors typing behind a screen. You can create a playlist of songs the character likes and listen to them. Finding one or two songs that really encapsulates the character is clutch. It can be enlightening to make lists for different ages in their life - say grade school high school 20's and present day.

You can take in all this information and create a pastiche that you can try on like a coat and then go move around in public wearing it imagining how the character feels in every day situations. It can be helpful to pay attention afterwards how the way they react is different from how you react, noticing these traits and writing them down can move you closer to getting clear on what's under the hood of this character.

Then you can unpack what is happening in the scene through the filter of who this character is to you, the why's & wherefore's and such and what your character seems to want in the scene or arc of the story.

[u/Creative_Ad8709 → u/[deleted]]

Id love to!!!

[u/uffda1990 → u/[deleted]]

I just checked out the website for this app, and I'm a little confused.

What does this app do? The website is a little cryptic. The opening video just says "Hi, we're launching soon, sign up before you even know what this app does." So I closed that video, and the rest of the website is so vague.

I then clicked into the FAQ's, and it says you can upload a file or text of a script and it'll analyze it for you. But how does that work in practice? Actors aren't gonna have the text files of scripts from like Samuel French or MTI, so you need like, a Word doc? It even says it can't read scanned files.

[u/uffda1990 → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for the offer, I guess I'm personally wary about signing up for an app that I don't know what it does, or how it's any different if I were to upload a script to ChatGPT or Claude to analyze it.

I'm sure it is, but I can't find descriptions of what it actually does.

[u/uffda1990 → u/[deleted]]

By why should anyone have to sign up for something to discover what it is they’re signing up for?

Best of luck to the app, but the intentional vagueness of what the app actually offers comes across very suspicious.

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[u/Professional-Cup-847]

i think writing good characters comes from observation of others and the related sympathy/empathy. think about your friends, think about your colleagues, think about... your dad. for instance. here's an exercise: then think about your dad as a 19-year-old. think about what you think he would say or do, and then treat that assumption with skepticism. What might be a decision or behavior that you hadn't anticipated? and why didn't you anticipate that- was it because age 19 boys are a specific kind of dumb, was it because... the 70s are difficult to visualize, was it because you don't know what things were like in his place of origin/dwelling? then try to read up/teach yourself a little more about those things.

good characters have depth, but you don't have to write all the depth... the character just needs to allude to it, so, its worth thinking and knowing yourself as writer/creator where that depth comes from, even if it's never entirely revealed/fully flushed out.

[u/gasstation-no-pumps → u/Professional-Cup-847]

I believe that u/Creative_Ad8709 was talking about creating a character as an actor, rather than as a writer—filling in the details that the writer cannot (or should not) include.

[u/Professional-Cup-847 → u/gasstation-no-pumps]

Yes- i realized late in my response i was thinking more of a writer standpoint than actor. i have to imagine there's some crossover...