Get Out of my Head!
I'm a head actor. For those who might not understand, what I'm trying to say is that I think about things too much. I'm not a doer, I'm a thinker. Now, it's not necessarily a bad thing since, although I tend to over-analyze a script, I want to know where I'm coming from. I want to understand my character and it's nuances from every possible angle.
Still not sure what I mean? Here's an example:
My character from We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay! - Antonia
When talking about my husband, I say the words: "For ten years, every time we have an argument...". This tells me that we've been married for ten years. Now, since there is a dominant pregnancy theme in the play, I begin to wonder: how come we don't have any children yet if we've been married for ten years? Is it because we can't afford it? Is it because one of us does not want children? And if so, which one? Make a choice. Based on the performance choices the actor playing my husband has brought forth, I'm going to say that I'm the one who does not want them, for the reason mentioned above. Ok. Now where does that take me when I look at the rest of the script...
ect, ect
And that's just from 1 line in the script. A great acting teacher once told me about text that every line is there for a reason, so this one is just as important as all the others. However, you should see the mangled mess my brain becomes when I begin to look at every other one. It's fun, though. Especially when I get to talk it out with someone.
Last night, the actor playing my best friend and I were working on our lines at Second Cup when she asked me: "So what's your character like?"
Big mistake if you don't want me to talk your ear off for an hour. But I realized that she was able to talk about her character just as much. And it really helped me flesh out some background to our relationship.
Ok, so far, I'm putting head work in a very positive light and I really didn't mean to. What I wanted to do was come here and bitch about how I have all this information and research done about my character but I have trouble just letting things happen when we get on our feet. Because I am. If I go back to my brain as a computer analogy from a previous post, it's as if the wire that transmits the information from head to body isn't connected properly and stuff gets lost along the way.
But then again, I might be overthinking that too.
Still not sure what I mean? Here's an example:
My character from We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay! - Antonia
When talking about my husband, I say the words: "For ten years, every time we have an argument...". This tells me that we've been married for ten years. Now, since there is a dominant pregnancy theme in the play, I begin to wonder: how come we don't have any children yet if we've been married for ten years? Is it because we can't afford it? Is it because one of us does not want children? And if so, which one? Make a choice. Based on the performance choices the actor playing my husband has brought forth, I'm going to say that I'm the one who does not want them, for the reason mentioned above. Ok. Now where does that take me when I look at the rest of the script...
ect, ect
And that's just from 1 line in the script. A great acting teacher once told me about text that every line is there for a reason, so this one is just as important as all the others. However, you should see the mangled mess my brain becomes when I begin to look at every other one. It's fun, though. Especially when I get to talk it out with someone.
Last night, the actor playing my best friend and I were working on our lines at Second Cup when she asked me: "So what's your character like?"
Big mistake if you don't want me to talk your ear off for an hour. But I realized that she was able to talk about her character just as much. And it really helped me flesh out some background to our relationship.
Ok, so far, I'm putting head work in a very positive light and I really didn't mean to. What I wanted to do was come here and bitch about how I have all this information and research done about my character but I have trouble just letting things happen when we get on our feet. Because I am. If I go back to my brain as a computer analogy from a previous post, it's as if the wire that transmits the information from head to body isn't connected properly and stuff gets lost along the way.
But then again, I might be overthinking that too.
posted by Nancy Kenny at
12:11 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home