ON ACTING: Origin of True Character Emotion

The most apt and cogent definition of drama I know is: character revealed in action; character is what character does.

True character emotion is revealed by what a character feels and therefore does in his/her conflictual engagement with the other actors in the scene. The real emotional energy in a scene comes not from the 'actor-as-actor'’s energy...trying to ‘wow’ the audience...but from the energy of the 'actor-as-character''s internal performance trying to defeat her onstage opponent.