ON ACTING: Creating a Fully Dimensioned Character

When you define your character’s objective, you must simultaneously find the character’s soft underbelly. It is the opposite side of your character's human coin. It is your character's inner sensitivity, the vulnerability, the susceptibility to defeat beneath your harsh shell of objective seeking.

It is the side of you the other characters are eager to probe and reveal. It could be the need for love; the desire for power; a flawed intelligence; the love of a child; sexual excitability: sides of you that can lead to defeat and disaster if not protected.

Because you want always to create a three-dimensional character, one that the audience follows in the drama's plot unfolding because your character can either win or lose, because your character has objectives and inner vulnerabilities simultaneously co-existent, you must, in your character preparation, do double duty: define your character's hard objective while at the same time activating your character's soft inner sensitivity; the well-rounded human being, hard and soft at the same time.