24. The Actor's Craft and Writing: Make Your Characters Active and Believable

EPISODE DESCRIPTION:    
Continuing to build on last week's discussion, this episode presents the next three don'ts in a series of 12 that actors (and writers) should not do., and what they SHOULD do instead.

4. DON'T INDICATE, meaning, don't comment on the work, or tell your audience how they should feel about a character or situation. Both actors and writers should play the truth of the situation and leave interpretation or evaluation to the audience.

5. DON'T JUST STAND THERE, DO SOMETHING, which means, actors should find behavior to justify the text since story is about behavior, and writers should start each scene by giving the characters something to do. This will allow the scene to develop in a more dynamic way.

6. DON'T USE PEOPLE LIKE PROPS. All characters must have their own agenda. Don't have all of the supporting characters simply there to serve the main character's needs. When each character enters a scene with his or her own objective, it can lead to conflict and tension, which is what we want. Actors, focus on tactics you should use to achieve your objective, and writers, make sure every character has his or her own agenda to pursue.

UP NEXT
Next week, we will discuss the next 3 don'ts.

7. DON'T BE A DUMPTRUCK
8. DON'T HOLD BACK.
9. DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE MESSAGE

Join us for some great tips! 

QUESTIONS OR TOPIC REQUESTS?
If you have a question or a specific writing related topic that you would like Zena to consider addressing in a future podcast, click on the link below to leave a voicemail recording for Zena.

https://www.speakpipe.com/ZenaDellLowe

DOWNLOAD TRANSCRIPTS?
Zena is currently working on making the transcripts for these podcast episodes available for download on the Mission Ranch Films website. If you would like to be notified when this option is available, click here to join our email list. https://missionranchfilms.com

SPECIAL THANKS
The Mission with Zena Dell Lowe would like to thank composer Carla Patullo for the original music she graciously permits us to use in the intro and outro of this podcast. To find out more about this amazing talent, go to  www.carlapatullo.com

Transcript

Ep 24  - 12 Don'ts of Acting - Part 2 - 8:12:20, 8.56 PM

Wed, 11/4 8:35PM • 15:59

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

actors, character, writers, audience, scene, people, dynamic, older sister, play, younger sister, indicating, objective, action, hardshell, novelists, agenda, relationships, understand, behavior, vivid

SPEAKERS

Zena Dell Lowe

Zena Dell Lowe  00:00

INTRO: Hello, and welcome to the Mission with Zena Dell Lowe, a podcast for artists and storytellers about changing the world for the better through story. 

Zena Dell Lowe  00:11

TOPIC INTRODUCTION: I recently read a definition that I would like to share with you because it seems very apropos to the discussion that we've been in lately. According to Jeffrey Sweet, a script is a program of opportunities for actors to do things designed to rivet the attention and sympathies of the audience. In other words, it's not about words, it's not about lines. Any actor worth his salt knows that a good part doesn't have anything to do with the number of lines that they have. The job of the actor is to act, not to speak. Otherwise, they would call them speakers. Now, novelists don't tend to understand this concept. In fact, there's a lot of great novelists who have tried to write screenplays or plays, and they just haven't been able to do it successfully. And it's because novelists try to accomplish everything with language, and the result is usually a lot of talk, a lot of talking heads, a lot of big chunks of people spelling out things through dialogue. They actually pontificate on and articulate the themes in an overt way; it becomes really clunky. 

Zena Dell Lowe  01:25

Now, for the last few weeks, we've been taking a deep dive into the craft of acting because I believe there is liquid gold to be mined for the writer's craft. In fact, I don't think that you should be writing a play, a screenplay, or a novel if you have not yet mastered the craft of writing a scene. Further, I don't believe you can write a scene without knowing something about how actors work. Because when you know how actors work, now you know what the writer has to supply so that they can do that work. And all of a sudden, your piece becomes more vivid, even if it's a novel. Now, some of the basic things that actors need overlap and are exactly the same things that writers need. They need to know a few key aspects of characterization. They need to know what their character wants. What is their character's objective? What are they pursuing relentlessly over the course of the telling? And they need to know what their character needs, that thing that sometimes is not the same thing as what they want. It's in their subconscious, or it's their wound that they need to heal. Now, it sounds simple. And yet, there are a number of mistakes that actors and writers make at this point. And so that's what we're addressing here today. 

Zena Dell Lowe  02:41

PRESENTATION: Now, on the last episode, we launched into a discussion of the 12 "don'ts" that actors shouldn't do, and then we applied those same "don'ts" to the writers. Today, we're going to continue with this discussion, and we're going to start on number four: don't indicate. Now, part of the skill of acting is the ability to create the illusion of coming up with things right in that moment and not knowing more than your character does; to be so thoroughly present, to be so thoroughly in your character's skin that you don't give the audience any tip off that there's any difference between the actor and the character, to make it truly believable, to make your audience believe every single moment is real, that it's really how a real human being would behave. But actors who don't have this skill, they run the risk of doing something called "indicating." When actors indicate, it means they're commenting on their roles. So, for example, this would be like somebody who's playing a villain and is twisting their mustache and chuckling maniacally - muahahahaha. All right, that's pretty obvious over-the-top stuff. It's not very subtle. It would be the actress who's playing an ingenue who twists her blonde curls and puts a finger in her dimple and flutters her eyes and giggles in a high, high voice. Okay, these are exaggerated examples, but what both of these actors would be guilty of doing is trying to communicate to the audience directly how they want those characters to be viewed. "I'm evil." "I'm young and innocent." And that is indicating. Indicating is a huge taboo in naturalistic acting, but actors aren't the only ones guilty of doing it. Writers too are often guilty of commenting on the work or evaluating their work even in the midst of the text. Oftentimes, this manifests itself in ornate speeches or really flowery phrases. It's the stuff that the writer likes the best.

Zena Dell Lowe  04:49

Instead of indicating, or commenting on the work, what you want to do is try to reveal character relationships or anything else through vivid actions. For example, in Arthur Miller's play A View from the Bridge, there's a scene that I just love. It's between a character named Eddie and another character named Marco, and they're basically having a battle of strength trying to show who is strongest by seeing who can pick up a chair by the end of one leg. Now, that is a very visual way to show the power struggle between these two characters. It shows relationships between two characters made vivid through action. And those are the kinds of things that we want to do to our audience. Because here's the thing, evaluations, interpretations, belong to the audience. It is not our job to try to tell them how they should think or feel about our characters, or what our characters are really thinking or feeling. Our job is to show behavior and let the audience interpret it to determine how that character is feeling about any other character in the scene, or what their internal emotional state is at any given time. You want to let the audience interpret the behavior. 

Zena Dell Lowe  06:08

And by the way, this is how we get the audience to engage. This is how we get them interested, we get them wrapped up into our story. See, if you tell them stuff, there's no mystery for them, there's no joy. One of the great joys for us is to try to figure it out. So really, what you want to do, is just give the people in the audience just enough information for them to be able to figure out for themselves the meaning of everything else that's going on in these scenes. What we want to do is provide vivid behavior in order for the audience to interpret the internal emotional state. So, that means you do not want to indicate, you want to reveal through action.

Zena Dell Lowe  06:55

Which leads me then to point number five: don't just stand there, do something. When I'm teaching improv, one of the first things I try to do is get the actors in their body through action. So, I have them do a series of things. "Okay, now we're digging a hole. Now, we're panning for gold. Now, we're following a trail of ants. Now, we're kicking over an ant hill. Now, the ants are crawling up our leg. Now, they're biting us, and they're fire ants. Now, we run into the water and try to get the ants off of us." You know, whatever. It's all about behavior: behavior through action. It's much more dynamic. But what inevitably happens when I first give them a scenario, is they stop their actions, and the next thing you know, they stand up there like two talking heads. You don't want talking head scenes. 

Zena Dell Lowe  07:53

Now, a lot of people will argue that, well, a play is mostly dialogue, and so they rely on dialogue as if that's what a play really is. But I would argue that they're wrong. Even plays are about action, not words. And writers, when you give the character something to do, it automatically opens the door for way more dynamic scenes, way more interesting things to unfold. Let me give you an example. One of my very first short films that I wrote and directed was called Hardshell. It wasn't great, however, I'm proud of this scene. Now, what Hardshell is about is two sisters who eventually cut each other out of their lives. Now, there's a scene in hardshell where the sisters have a fight. And what I wanted was for them not to yell and scream, and I didn't want a fight that relied on words. So, what I did instead, I have the older sister go to the younger sister's house to try to have a conversation, to try to heal their relationship, but the younger sister had her back to the older sister and was folding laundry. And so, the appeals of the older sister fell on deaf ears and at one point, the older sister grabs the garment of clothing, and they end up having this tug-of-war over the clothing, which escalates nonverbally to the point where the younger sister finally just hauls off and slaps the older sister, and then the older sister comes back and slaps the younger sister and knocks her down. And that becomes the moment where their relationship is fully severed. And I didn't use words. I used the object that they're wrestling over to show that. Now, I wish I would have actually had the shirt that they were wrestling with rip because that would have been another layer of demonstrating to the audience visually the severing of their ties. I didn't think about that at the time. The point is that you want to give your actors something to do. And actors, you want to try to find behaviors on stage that justify the text—you have to justify the text—but that allow you to demonstrate what it is that you're really about, what you're after. 

Zena Dell Lowe  10:23

So, here's another example. There was a role in Dangerous Liaisons that Alan Rickman played, and if you've ever seen the play or the movie, you know that this character is a real slime bucket and he always thinks from the waist down. So, what Alan Rickman did is he made a choice for that character. Whenever he would start moving across the stage, he would always start with his crotch, he would lead with this crotch, because that's what the character thought with. Now, this was an actor's choice. And of course, he's good enough to make that work. Not a lot of us could have made that work. But the point is that that is the actor's job, to find behaviors that justify the text that you're given that give the audience something to interpret. What if you had a character say, "Do you love me?" and the other character took a step forward and said, "Yes." All right, now the audience can interpret that behavior accordingly. But what if you did just the opposite? One character says, "Do you love me?" and the other character says, "Yes," but takes a step back. The actions belie the words, and that immediately creates interest and intrigue on the part of the audience. So, that's another way to visually give the audience something to interpret. Actors need to create movement to justify the words, but if writers approach the writing with these things in mind, it would understandably lead to way more interesting and dynamic scenes. 

Zena Dell Lowe  11:58

Which leads me to point six, our final point for today: don't use people like props. When an actor analyzes a script and tries to determine what his or her character's objective is, it's because they know they have to pursue it relentlessly over the course of the telling. And actors, when you figure out what your character wants, what you're trying to do is find tactics, then, that make sense, given the scene. Sometimes you're manipulating, sometimes you're trying to guilt, sometimes you're trying to shame the other person. You break the script down into beats that allow you to play those emotional things in pursuit of your agenda. But writers, what you need to understand is that everybody must have their own agenda or objective. What often happens is that writers forget that their supporting characters also have their own objective or agenda. And so, everybody else in the story simply becomes a prop, a furniture piece for the main character's experience or journey. They're all there to support the main character. But that's not very dynamic. Where actors are concerned with their individual character's objective, writers need to be cognizant, always, of all of the objectives, because this is where the gold is. In a two-person scene, character A wants something from character B, but character B wants something from character A, and it's out of that conflict and that clash of agendas that wonderful dynamic scenes come about. But if you just have one character there for the other character to get advice or to talk out loud what their plan is or to pontificate or to share their woes with, and the other person is just a really good listener, it's boring. It's on the nose. It doesn't have anything interesting to offer the audience at all. You need to have both characters, or all the characters, going after their own agenda. That is where the drama comes from. That's where the good stuff comes from. And by the way, most people don't come at their objective directly. Sometimes people will come out and say and articulate their objectives clearly. "I want you to love me, just as I am." But mostly their wants come out sideways. What we know from psychology is that in many cases, people aren't even aware of what they want from other people. And this is true in real life as much as it is in story. In fact, there are a lot of psychologists who make quite a good living trying to help people bring the unconscious into their conscious mind so that they can understand why they're doing the things that they're doing. And then, having understood, they're now empowered to make new choices and to take back control of their lives. So, people pursue their own objectives indirectly, which is where subtext comes from, which is what the audience is really trying to understand and interpret, which is where the dynamics of the relationships come from, which is where the magic is. So, don't use people like props. 

Zena Dell Lowe  15:25

OUTRO: I want to thank you so much for joining me today. I hope that this has been enlightening. Next week, we will continue our discussion of 12 things that actors should not do, and writers by default. Until then, thank you so much for listening to the Mission with Zena Dell Lowe. May you go forth inspired to change the world for the better through story.