How do I get more into character???????

Question

I want to eventually be an actress, I took acting classes for a year or so when I was younger, and I've been in a few local plays. i'm going to audition for as many plays as I possibly can, and I am going to major in drama next year in high school....I was just wondering, from your point of view, what I can do, to get me more into character, and be as prepared as possible for the scene? Also what can I do that will help with stage fright. I don't have it, it's more like an adrinalin for me...but still. and what can I do, that will help me n the crying scenes? also, how do I connect as best as I can with the other person in the scene? if it's eitehr romantic..or not. THANK YOU DEARLY.
-haeli.

Answer 1

All of your situations can be handled by the same application.
If you stop acting and start reacting instead, you will solve all of your problems. Here's what happens when you are acting: you are constantly thinking about what you should be doing and how you should do it, you worry about that little flub you made a couple of speeches back and you wonder if you will be able to cry on the next page when you are supposed to do so. Here is what happens when you react: you are in the moment of the scene, listening with all your senses to get the stimuli from the situation and other characters and when you get it (usually a line from a scene partner) you react to it as the character would react without filtering it with any of your hang ups. In fact, you are no longer in the scene. Only the character is in the scene, and she is reacting to everything without being controlled by you. Her reactions are fully expressed and honest. If she needs to cry you will do that if you just allow yourself to react to the stimuli of the scene. You will not be nervous, because nervousness is not one of the character's reactions. So what you do is get out of the scene as the actress and get into reacting to the stimuli as the character. simple and effective.
As the actress, you can do one thing to be more effective with your portrayals, auditions, etc. And that is to approach the work as play. Acting is playing (its what children do when they play) and playing is fun. Acting is the one activity where instead of having to be grown up and control yourself, you can be free to play like a kid without controls (except of course to make sure that you do not break the furniture or other actors!). Well, that's it. You need no method, no Stanislavski, no Meisner, no Adler, you only need to react and have fun. It is not a lot of stuff. What is a lot of stuff is the nonsense Shakesby has given you. He wants you to act. I want you to react and be effective as the character. (What makes Whose Line Is It? so effective? The players are playing, having fun and reacting! The same thing occurs in effective scripted drama, except your reactions are lines of dialogue that contain the emotion and action of the part and those reactions are the character!)

Answer 2

Getting into character requires that you know the story you are a part of and you know the character you are playing as well as you can. While you read the script, find clues as to how your character and all the others feel about each other. As you rehearse scenes, your director will block your actions and you should study the lines you have to say as if you are the character you play. Study the scene and decide how you are to speak to others and how you advance the story by being there (you must know the playwrite has a reason for your character being in the scene and your lines will communicate it as will your actions). You must listen to the other actors in each scene you perform. All the actors in a scene help each other through the story line and the more you rehearse it the more you will remember it.

Every actor has stage fright in some form. To combat it, you must be confident in your ability to inhabit the life of your character. Imagine the scene as a moment in your own life and you have to make the emotions seem real.

You have to perform your scenes as though they are happening for the first time every time you do them. That means you have to know your lines and the context of the story. Take a breath before you begin acting. This makes a transition from you to the character you are playing. If you need to portray a powerful emotion, then spend some time thinking of ways you might feel if you were facing that emotion in real life. If you can make it seem real, then the audience will believe your portrayal.

Just before going on, the actor Jack Lemmon used to say to himself, "It's magic time". By doing this, he was transitioning to the character but also giving himself that confidence to combat stage fright. If you believe you are the character and your portrayal is believable, then the audience loses sight of you as an actor and just sees the character you are playing.

Break a leg! Rob R

Answer 3

Wow. That's a lot of stuff. The number one answer for all of the above is to get yourself into acting classes. If you are really serious about it, search out acting teachers in your area and take classes. The high school drama class is a good place to start, but by no means needs to be all you have. Only working with a good acting coach can REALLY answer all the questions you have.

But a few pointers: To get into character, it is important that you understand and know your character completely. You should know your character as well as you know yourself. What sort of background, family life, what major events has shaped her life, what values are most important, etc. No detail is too small.

Second, know very clearly what it is your character is trying to achieve in the scene. What is it that your character WANTS from the other person(s) in the scene? Make it something tangible and achievable. Wanting someone to feel weaker than you is achievable, but wanting to the world to be a better place is not. Etc.

The other thing, and this is basic: Be sure to read the whole play your scene is taken from. You can't begin to know and understand a character that you've only seen a glimpse of.

Stage fright has always been present with me, and I've been doing this for about 18 years. I channel it into my energy and focus. Instead of dwelling on the fright, I focus it into my character.

For crying on stage: The best method I've come across comes from Stanislavski. Think about something from your life, your past that always, never fails, makes you cry. It is probably going to be something unpleasant that you don't want to think about and don't normally let yourself think about. We're talking about death, abuse, shame, anything that gets the tears flowing. The trick is to practice it. In your room, at night, or whatever, try it. Make yourself cry. Once you've done it. You know you can do it. Next, stop crying as immediately as you can. Realize that it was just a tool, something you did to yourself to reach an end, cut off the tears. Do this again and again over several weeks' time, and you'll find that you can recall the tears without all the emotional tumult to go along with, and you'll also, just as importantly, be able to get back to "business" and not be weighted down by your sadness.

On connecting: Eye contact. Listen. And I mean REALLY listen, don't just wait for your chance to talk. Think about it like this: put all your focus and energy on the other person. After all, they have what you want. You want something from that person, or else you wouldn't be talking to them in the first place. Go after your goal. Put all focus on your partner. If you listen and make eye contact, and always focus on your partner you will have great connections everytime.

That's a lot of stuff. I hope this helps some. But please, heed my urgings and seek out acting classes. You can't fake good training.

Answer 4

Research the characters life. Read about people who resemble that character, watch movies with a similar character.Do all you can to get a better sense of how that character would really think and feel. For myself the best help with the crying scenes was to be able to really identify with your character, as if, you yourself were going through the pain. Empathy. I never had stage fright either but in the beginning I just tried hard to not see the audience but to look or focus on a light or point beyond the audience if I felt nervous. Eventually I relaxed more and the audience no longer made me nervous. Good Luck! I am certain you will be awesome!

Answer 5

As an actor you have to be a detective and a psychologist.

You have to be able to pick the script apart and analyze your character. You have to know what makes them tick. Try looking through each script and write down what your character says and what other characters say about the character you are playing.

Read your script over and over. Acting is reacting to what is going on or what is being said to your character. You have to learn to listen. Even if you aren't saying anything in the scene you should be listening to what is being said.

The more prepared you are the less likely you are to have stage fright, but even if you do have it you have to learn to use it to your advantage and transfer that energy into your character.

Crying scenes: If you are doing your job right, which means you are listening to what is being said or what you are saying then it will come naturally. You have to be able to walk in your character's shoes.

As far as connecting with the other person in the scene...you should be connecting with their character...not the actual actor. Again, this requires listening to what is being said and reacting to it as your character.

In its simplist form acting is the art of conversation and exploration. You as the actor are exploring the world of the character and having conversations that are true to the character's nature.

So ultimately, be a detective and analyze the script. Be a psychologist so that you can relate to what is being said to your character and know why your character reacts to what is being said or to what is happening around her.

Answer 6

of course knowing the basics and being serious about acting is essential but also to really get in character dive into the character's pysche. (sp?) is the piece you're working on based on a book? read the book. if not study the script, notice the little things your character does. if she were to sit down at a table to drink a cup of hot tea would she just grab the cup with both hands or would she hold the cup with one hand and a pinkie sticking up? notice the small things and connect your life to your characters to see all the similarities. that will also help with crying scenes. bring up your own life experiences to help with that. the best thing to help with stage fright is to practice. take a public speaking class if you can. so that way you'll be practicing speaking in front of people. and practicing with your castmates will also help you.

Answer 7

1. Try some improv -- it will help you think on you feet.

2. As for the crying, two thoughts: try doing the things (clenching your jaw, tensing the muscles in your face, breathing raggedly, etc.) that you do when you're actually crying. This will at least help you SOUND like you are. To some degree you will feel similar as well. Depending on whether you're method or Meisner, you might want to think about something really devastating and how you would react (method, I think), or get someone in the cast to actually make you sad (Meisner). Just a thought.

3) As far as relating to someone in a scene -- that's a hard call. I guess if you're into Meisner, you let yourself get interested in that person, at least a bit, so you feel a little real romance. Or you think through how you would act (method) if you had such a relationship, and act that way.

I know this doesn't help much -- but at least try the improv bit.

Answer 8

The best way to get better is to train. So take every opertynity to train on different parts of acting not just in classes and amaotur plays but when youre home alone with nothing to do as well. Also see a lot of plays/tv series/ movies from a actors perspective and try to do things the way they do it. Laughing and crying etc.

Its also important to be willing to learn from misstakes because thats whats gonna make you better and better! Good luck! Johan

Answer 9

an ordinary attitude could be to map the 196 maximum hassle-unfastened mixtures (out of that 3600) to 196 distinctive configurations of a byte, then use the the rest 60 configurations to characterize the 60 distinctive characters in my opinion. not each and every pair will compress, yet observing the coaching you're able to desire to be waiting to compress fairly a number of them.

Answer 10

practice your scenes with others