Acting Tips - Adapting Your Character Based on Altering Circumstances

While outlining this article, I kept thinking of the film "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Within this film, Jim Carey wishes to erase the memory of Kate Winselt from his mind after a problematic relationship. Throughout the story, he is encountering memories of their relationship, and his character begins to alter based on current circumstances. At the end of the film, he cancels the process and desires to be in a relationship with the very woman that he wished to erase from his memory.

As an actor, your character will typically not maintain on the same emotional path throughout the entire story. He will likely encounter various circumstances that require him to alter his strategy and objectives; sometimes, this alteration is extremely dramatic, while other times it is subtle.

Expectations

Like you, your character has been conditioned by his expectations of his future. And just like your life, his expectations are rarely met as we can never predict the future and circumstances will alter the course of his expectations.

Because of this life truth, you must never act based on expectations. You should never expect a coming emotional change within your character as doing so will quickly take your character out of reality and into the realm of the scripted, which is never a good thing. According to the famed acting coach Uta Hagen, "When the actor anticipates what he will see, hear and feel and what the others will be doing, it is because he has failed to include the logical expectation that condition his actions or merely paid them lip service."

I love the aforementioned quote, and it speaks volumes as to how you should perform. Even though you've ran over a scene literally hundreds of times in your head and in rehearsal, and you are well-versed in the upcoming emotional battles and conversations with other characters, you should never let your expectations slip into actual knowing. You must maintain the reality of expecting and striving for one thing, but being blind sided when life throws you a curveball.

Adapting

Your character must adapt to the changing circumstances. This adaptation may be minor or huge. However, in order to truly portray a realistic character you must understand the level of adaptation of your character based on the circumstances. For example, how would your character adapt after expecting to go to college only to find out that his college fund was spent when his drunken father went gambling and lost it all at the casino?