Finding Your Interpretation of a Character
Good news: the part is yours! The director loved your tape—full of those ideas you used to stand out from the pack and grab their attention. But now that the contract is signed and the script is in your hands, the real work begins. How do you go about finding your interpretation of a character in the context of a larger story, the performances of your co-stars and the director’s vision for the entire production? Is it a well-known role, which carries its own baggage and expectations? Or something fresh begging for your personal stamp?
Whether it’s an iconic role in the theatrical canon or a character from a brand new work, finding your interpretation of a character is a thrilling task for an actor. It requires a great deal of research into the role and the story world, and rewards caution as much as it does bold, unexpected choices. Whatever your interpretation may be, it has to be believable within the context of the story; if the audience doesn’t buy your take, the artifice of your work will shine through.
In this article, we’ll take you step by step through the process of finding your interpretation of a character. But before we do, let us kick things off with some advice. Interpreting a character is never about you, the actor. You can’t modify a role to suit you because it’s easier, or more challenging, or more interesting for you to play. As an actor, your job is to serve the role and the story.
Establish the Facts
It all starts with the script. Your first step in finding your interpretation of a character is to establish firmly what’s already there on the page and what the boundaries of your exploration of that character might be. This comes from reading the script over and over, taking note of what and how it has been written. Only then can you determine the question of why.
In our article on script analysis, we outline the process of unlocking the meaning by closely and carefully parsing each line—and each word within that line—for possible meaning. Keep your eye on vocabulary and word choice, punctuation, style; even the way a script is structured on the page itself (although this is more within the context of theatre than film.)
Whatever you find there is what the writer intended. These are the facts, friends: the building blocks on which all knowledge in the story world is created. If you chip away at one of them, you will eventually invite the whole structure to crumble into rubble.
And take our word for it that working this way with a script is not as restricting as it sounds. Some actors reject this process, fearing that their creativity will be stifled by a series of rules and restrictions placed by the writer. Good actors, however, learn to embrace the facts—because they understand that a truly inspired interpretation comes from filling the gaps in between.
Anything the writer didn’t specify is fair game. And there’s always more white than black on the page.
Find the Gaps
What kind of car does your character drive? When did they start working their current job? Who was their best friend in high school? How do they unwind after a long day? What drove them to make a pun before they threw that bad guy off that zeppelin?
With the facts stowed away, you can start to ask the questions that inform your character’s actions and words—the questions not simply answered by what’s written in the script.
This is where your interpretation of a character gets interesting. Even though the facts of a story will never change, your answers to the questions around these facts might be radically different to the next actor to say the exact same words. What’s more, considering these questions in the first place will allow you to create a far more complex, three-dimensional performance.
Say your character enters a scene by stepping out of a rain storm. That’s all the writer gives you: “[CHARACTER] enters the [LOCATION] on a rainy night.” What questions might you ask?
- Are they wet from the rain?
- If not, what kept them dry?
- Did they stash an umbrella outside the door before they came in?
- Is the umbrella theirs, or did they take it from somebody else?
- If they stole it, what does that say about their personality?
And so on. From a simple line at the top of a script, we can start to paint a picture of a character ill-prepared, unscrupulous, possibly with thieving tendencies. Are we reading into this too much? Perhaps! But suddenly there’s a lot more to work with when crafting the previously-ambiguous moment before.
A Quick Note: When Questions Become Facts
When asking questions about a script, there will inevitably come a time when your thoughts are answered by the reveal of information at a later point in the story. This is nothing to worry about, simply modify your interpretation to include any new-found facts.
The opposite can be true as well. A character’s much-reported personal history may turn out to be a complete fabrication. Suddenly, you need to go back and re-examine all the things you previously believed to be true. Fun!
How Much is Too Much?
If finding your interpretation of a character is as simple as respecting the facts and asking a whole heap of questions, how can you tell when to stop asking? How much is too much when it comes to hot takes and speculation? How far is too far?
It’s actually important to discover the line between an interpretation that is dynamic and totally over the top. It’s a healthy boundary to push in your exploration of a character or scene, as you often find the most interesting things in this liminal space between insipid and inspired.
The trick is to think of your process as experimentation: a chance to explore, imagine and even fail. Nothing you try is going to work immediately; if it does, it’s probably worth exploring a little further beyond that point.
And once you’ve experimented? Learn when to step things back. This comes from experience, from the feedback of your peers and the guidance of your director on a production–who is sure to have opinions as to your character creation with an outsider’s eye. Check back in with your interpretation of the script to see if your choices ‘fit’ into the story world.
Do they feel like they could be a realistic part of that landscape?
Living in the Story World
The best test of your characterisation of a role is how well they fit within the story world. Try your interpretation out for a scene or two, and ask yourself in what you’re doing feels consistent and real.
The story world is the ecosystem in which the narrative takes place: the living, breathing space created by the writer that grounds the story and makes it feel believable. Even if your character is a complete, one-of-a-kind, fish-out-of-water loner, they have to be a loner within that particular context.
This is especially important when you’re developing smaller, bit-part chartacters. For audiences, small roles are custodians of the story world. They help establish the ‘normal’ of the narrative, as the
