Comments on: Am I Good Enough To Do The Part? http://www.theactorsapproach.org/2011/12/am-i-good-enough-to-do-the-part/ Thu, 12 Jan 2012 04:42:17 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.40 By: Francis Gercke http://www.theactorsapproach.org/2011/12/am-i-good-enough-to-do-the-part/#comment-4 Thu, 15 Dec 2011 22:54:19 +0000 http://www.theactorsapproach.org/?p=156#comment-4 I think the simplest way to answer is to say that the actor needs to adopt the dangerous belief that there truly is no character. There is only the actor, her sensitivity, her responses, her feelings. The actor often feels obligated to create a character — someone whom she is not and therefore someone whom she is imitating. And that so very often doesn’t feel right. And it shouldn’t feel right because the actor has alienated herself from her own thougths, feelings, responses, etc. So the actor must embrace that she must start with herself — she is the raw material upon which the entire play will be built, and the character can go do something less than polite to mention in civilzed society. Later in rehearsal, as the actor becomes more and more familiar with the circumstances of the play, choices may be made that we call “character work”. But really the way to look at such “work” is the actor living up to the needs of the script. THE FIRST STEP, THE BEST STEP, and one which the actor rarely needs to move beyond is starting from herself, starting from where you are and who you are.

Hope this helped.

]]> By: Elaine Litton http://www.theactorsapproach.org/2011/12/am-i-good-enough-to-do-the-part/#comment-3 Thu, 15 Dec 2011 09:49:23 +0000 http://www.theactorsapproach.org/?p=156#comment-3 Are you saying you have to really believe in the character you, as an actor, will bring to life, but you also have to believe in your own unique ability to inhabit this character–a sense that you are compelled to bring to life this character who would never exist in just the manner in which you, yourself, created her?

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