Los Angeles Acting blog by David August: You Are More

Monday, December 30, 2013

You Are More

...always keep in mind that you are not your circumstances. You are so much more than that.

- Emily Grace

And so too are our characters. Knowing your characters' circumstances is needed, but so is knowing who they are aside from them. Rather, portraying who our characters are aside from what the world has presented them matters just as their given circumstances do. Would Hamlet hesitate if he were not the person he is? Would Medea spare her children were she some other mother? These are worth considering, and coming up with an answer for the project you are working on now.

Becomes a bit of semantics to shave hairs between the circumstance someone is in and the intrinsic qualities they have at that moment in their life, beyond the circumstances of the moment. Examining things like "fundamental attribution error" delves more into how people often assume much of someone's behavior is from who they are and not the situation they are in. And sometimes a given situation would lead almost everyone to behave as they do in that situation, and tells us less about who they are than we imagine. For our characters, they are both who they are, and where they are at, make up how they make their choices. Neglecting either would not be a good idea.

For us, in real life, we are not merely where we happen to be right now. You are not your income, your job title, your housing situation, your car or your credits. These things and more are parts of your life right now, but they are not your identity. So breathe, enjoy the moment as you can, and keep heading where you want to go. Good luck and break legs.