A Writer's Guide to Acting: Relationships Are About Emotions, Not Facts, Part I

Adding What You Know About Others to What You've Learned About Setting

This guide to acting is written with the intention for the novice actor to follow it in a linear way, building a character with certain tools the way a child would build with blocks. The first two sections deal with what I consider the foundation of creating a character: establishing the importance of setting, or more specifically, understanding the importance of where your character is geographically and emotionally.

Once you have established where you are, or that you don’t know where you are, the next step in building your character is learning how you relate to the other characters. Your relationship to other characters goes far beyond merely how you are linked or otherwise connected to them. In real life you connect with the same people in different ways at different times and under different circumstances. In addition, you may treat the same person differently from one setting to another. See how setting becomes important when added to relationships? Remember how I said that you will be adding these components together? That’s just one example, and a very simple one. Later on, you will be adding components together in a very complex and exciting way that you will probably never have even thought of before. It is that process that of learning how to combine aspects of your character together in unique and unexpected ways that makes the difference between a familiar performance and an innovative one.

What is the relationship between you and your father? Simple question, right? The relationship is that of offspring and parent. Figuring out your relationship with other characters will surely be one of the easiest things to figure out as an actor, right? Think again. We all know that in real life relationships are never easy. Well, guess what? This is even true when it comes to movies and plays. Because those stories are all about conflict and because they are required to condense the events they relate, the relationships told in movies and plays are especially volatile.