Regardless of the role, an actor always must fully use themselves, body and soul. But when playing a character physically and temperamentally different from you, the way you use your body and that soul requires some tweaking. It’s all well and good to employ your intuition and “simply play pretend,” but it’s nice to know how to get started creating the part technically if your intuition is scarce.
1. Adjustments. It may be that the character relates to the events as either more or less strange and significant than the way you would. If you’re a soldier in war or a member of organized crime, having your best friend shot dead is no less significant, but it’s less strange. If you are playing a psychopath, then it’s also less significant. To make an adjustment such as this ,you can use a particularization—an “as if.” For instance, to play a neat-freak character reacting to someone failing to use a coaster, you might substitute how you would feel if they put an open urine sample on the table.
2. Additions. This is that huge array of considerations you must take into account for how your character might differ from you in their movement, speech, and
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