I adore movies and adore many actors. I have never tried acting myself; so before I add my list to another thread (list your 10 greatest actors/roles), I have a question for all in this cafe:
What does it mean to say an actor creates a character? For example, in at least two articles I ran across quotes indicating that Johnny Depp’s “Captain Jack Sparrow” was not there on the page, in the script. What does that mean exactly? What do good actors do that creates such memorable personas? (In addition to having God-given talent).
The difference between an “actor” and a “player” is that an actor will literally invent a person. I mean, given that he/she is not portraying a real individual, it is up to the actor to come up with everything that makes up the person. All they have to go on is what the actor says through his or her dialogue. Sure, there may be stage directions such as he picks up the cup but things like this pirate is evil because his father beat him until he killed him and ran off and joined the circus and was sodomized by a monkey* is probably not going to be in the script unless an actual scene plays this out.
Sometimes actors will actually sit down and write out the character’s favorite things, likes and dislikes, etc. even if they don’t talk about the things, just to make them feel more like this person they’ve created. In the Computer Age, think of it like you’re creating a Sim.
Since our past experiences create who we are, it does take a lot of talent to come up with the motivation (AH! Key actor-word, motivation) for the character’s every move and word.
*I haven’t seen the movie, this is a figment of my disturbing imagination…
DooWah covered it pretty well, but in addition to all the background information the actor develops, one must also develop the physical self of the character. Depp’s performance in “Pirates of the blah blah blah” is a good example. The physicality of that character was probably initiated by Depp and refined with the assistance of the director finding places to use and not use it, ways to stress and not stress it.
A comparison of Dustin Hoffman’s Willie Loman and, say, Lee J. Cobb’s --I believe both are available – will give you tremendous insight into the physical and psychological work that an actor prepares to create a role and how it can differ substantially even with the same material.
It’s called backstory- it is the life experience of the character, what makes him who he is.
In some cases, ther is a great deal of motivation provided by the writer. In others, the actor must decide for himself why the character acts/talks/thinks/walks the way he does.
The most famous (or infamous, depending on your POV) way to create a character is through the Method. Many actors today are Method actors, which in a nutshell means you as the actor live the same experiences as the character. For an extreme example, if your character is a heroin addict, you can’t fully play him unless you use heroin, too. Less extreme examples would be things like homelessness, shoplifting, extreme weight gain or loss, etc.
In a forum ostensibly devoted to fighting ignorance, not perpetuating it, we would do well to avoid recycling some of the more mythical pretensions of the acting community.
To answer the OP, actors don’t create characters. Writers do. Actors can make whatever self-deluded fuss they like about all their hard, brilliant work ‘creating a character’, but the fact is they are required to have one skill and one skill only: to recite learned lines so that it sounds like someone talking, not someone regurgitating stuff they’ve learned. That’s it. It’s not something everyone can do, but it’s not something only actors can do either. I can do it, so can many people I know. Kids can do it, and do so spontaneously when at play.
To suggest actors achieve anything else is to pander to their fanciful delusions about how challenging their activity really is. Basically, they get paid (if they get any work at all) for playing ‘Let’s pretend’ all the day long day.
What about all this ‘method’ stuff, and creating a back story, and analysing their ‘motivation’ blah blah zzzz? The problem here is that it is inherently impossible to tell the difference between an actor who has done all these things and one who has not done them, and simply does what I mentioned above - says his or her lines so they sound like someone reacting and talking instead of someone reciting. In other words, I can play you a clip of any actor in any role, and challenge you to tell me whether that actor used ‘the method’, or ‘worked out a back story’ blah blah zzzz, or simply turned up knowing his lines and recited them well. You can’t do it. Because it makes no discernible difference to anything. It would be like me challenging you to tell me which of them prefers tea and which prefers coffee… you can’t tell, because it doesn’t make any difference to the performance.
Our friends in the acting trades, much though we may enjoy their work, are fond of making their task out to be much harder and more involved than it really is. There is no need to accept their more effusive and pretentious claims as anything other than Scotch Mist until we see some sort of evidence or proof.
Of course, actors reading this may protest. But a protest is not evidence, argument or proof.
Reading (studying perhaps) the books on Acting by Stanislavsky can help one to appreciate the “method” approach to acting. Whether individual actors go through those steps is open to interpretation. Whether the actor’s performance shows evidence of the internalizing of the approach given by Stanislavsky is for the audience to determine.
Actors may claim allegiance to any number of schools or methods, but the proof is in the pudding. If the performance is believable and/or effective, regardless of how the actor came to the performance, it is a worthy job. Otherwise, it’s not.
Ianzin, I couldn’t agree more! I am a former actor and I have had many very heated arguments about this very point. I would add, however, that I think the director also contributes to character polishing (if not creation) as they must really interpret the big picture and make it all work sensibly together.
One of my favorite behind the scenes, legendary comment was made by Laurence Olivier to Dustin Hoffman during the production of Marathon Man. Seems DH was literally killing himself trying to obtain the exhaustion and stress his character had to portray during the famous “dentist” scene and LO turned to him one day and said “Why don’t you try acting, dear boy; it’s so much easier”.
ianzin, let me guess. You’re a writer, right? I will be the first to admit that good actors are nothing without good writing (I’m both an actor and a writer, so I’ve seen both sides of the fence) but you spend five paragraphs bashing actors and then end it with “Of course, actors reading this may protest. But a protest is not evidence, argument or proof.”
Well, am I wrong in stating that this is exactly what you’ve done? I see no evidence in your post that proves that actors “pander to their fanciful delusions about how challenging their activity really is”. All I see is someone who is asserting this as a personal opinion.
I don’t think the OP was interested in starting a debate over whether or not actors are as talented as people make them out to be, but do you honestly think people like Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Hanks and a slew of other magnificent film and stage actors are really just “regurgitating stuff they’ve learned”? If so, I feel sorry for you… you’re missing out on the beauty of theatre.
As an avid movie fan myself, I can definitely spot differences between a believable character and a simple ‘line regurgitator’. Whether or not the actor used method acting, I could care less (as long as I believe in the character)
If we were talking ONLY about play actors, I would agree with ianzin. But in film, there is SO much more to a performance than simply repeating lines (for example: demeanor, subtle facial expressions, physical appearance, etc…). I think most of the time, these things CAN be enhanced by method acting, but only to a certain extent. IMO, most method actors go a little overboard to the point where it makes no difference to the performance anymore.
At the end of the day, a script has the words, and not much else. The actor supplies the speaking voice, the phrasing, the inflection, and the emphasis. They also supply the physical presence of the character, the movements, the mannerisms, all the little tics and expressions that make up a person. If simply reading the lines were enough, I would be a good actor.
I agree that acting is diffivult - having done much of it myself.
I also think that many of the ‘methods’ actors use are bunk (I was using a basic version of “The Method” in the 10th grade - three years before I even knew that it existed).
HOWEVER - the day that someone says that movie acting is HARDER than live acting???
PLEASE Much of the character that you see on the screen is created in the editing room, with the director taking bits from take 4, snippets from take 17, etc, etc to get what he wants.
Case in point, in the Fellowship of the Ring four disk set, on one of the auxillary disks they show Peter Jackson and a couple others on the Bag End set (still being built) blocking out camera angles. They knew the lines cold, or were reading them with script in hand, but since they weren’t polished actors, it’s almost painful to hear, especially compared to the final product. There was that thread about what does ‘wooden’ mean a while back – watch this and you’ll know.
Actors certainly do create characters. No two actors, if given the exact same pages of script, will play the same character. They’ll each have different vocal styles and inflections, accents, intensities, and even body language. And it’s the creation of that that makes a ‘character’.
Whether or not this should gain them unending praise, awards out the wazoo, or a billion trillion dollars, is ripe for debate, but you can at least say it is their contribution to the performance.
Other contributions, as listed already, include the writer, the director, the wardrobe, the other actors they play against, and the editor. That combination makes the character, but the actor has a significant role to it too. It is, when it comes down to it, their singular contribution, and so if they can’t achieve this they really don’t deserve the job.
Thanks for the thoughtful responses - I guess all I know for sure is that a good actor will use an elusive “something” to create a memorable character. (sloppy, half-awake comment, I know)
To return to my original example I can think of a dozen other actors who could have put on the same costume and said the same lines as Johnny Depp did, but still not have become an interesting Captain Jack Sparrow character.
Well, you can say it, but it doesn’t make it true. Have you ever seen a film script? There’s not a lot there. Of course an actor (with the director) has to do a lot of work to flesh out the character, and that’s a lot of fleshing out.
I’m sure you may protest. But a protest is not evidence, argument or proof.
This isn’t what I understand as method acting. Method acting, at its most simplest, is drawing upon one’s own experiences to help portray the character. An actor may recall the grief he felt after a relative died to help portray his character’s response to a death.
Of course, some actors have decided to add experience to their life to help them understand their character. That’s where we get the whole James Woods at the Kwik-E-Mart stereotype of the method actor.
Method acting is only a technique though. Most actors will use it, as Laurence Olivier recommends with “acting”.
I think there’s a little more to it than just reading the lines in a convincing manner, but far less to it than some actors would have you believe.
I don’t see that there’s much point in inventing an elaborate backstory for your character. With a good script and a good director, this shouldn’t even be necessary.
However, what makes acting “acting” and not just “reciting” is things like voice, expression, and mannerism. There are plenty of actors doing pretty well for themselves in Hollywood who use essentially the same voice, expressions, and mannerisms in every role, but actors who are known for their versatility and wide range can mix it up a little.
There are different ways to come up with how your character should act, but I think the “method” school is rarely needed. If your character has been up all night you could stay up all night yourself, or you could just remember how you behave when you’ve been up all night – or how your college roommate or girlfriend or little brother behave when they’ve been up all night.
I haven’t seen PotC yet myself, but I understand that Johnny Depp’s character is a pirate captain trying to recover his stolen ship. I think most people could imagine what such a character might act like, even if they don’t have any talent for acting themselves. But it is my understanding that Johnny Depp decided he would rather not be a typical Hollywood pirate, he’d prefer to be more of a rock star pirate. So he intentionally modeled his performance after Keith Richards. Nothing mystical about that, although it did take a little more thought and creativity than just memorizing the lines.
