Horror Acting Tips - Finding Your Character

When you're preparing for a role in a horror film, you must spend a decent amount of time trying to find your character. Like any other film, horror film characters have a specific purpose. There is a specific reason as to why he is in the movie, and a specific reason as to why he is interacting with the other characters. Identifying your character requires introspective thinking about the character. Remember, you are not your character, you must find the energy and purpose of a character in order to convert yourself into a new person.

Who Are You?

This is perhaps one of the most important steps you can take in order to find your character. By asking yourself, "Who Am I?" You are referring to not yourself, but rather, yourself as a character. It is important to think as you can the character as one - he is a separate soul who uses your body to tell his story. In a horror film, your character may be in a unique situation, and his true self is one of the reasons why he is there. For example, in the film "House of 1000 Corpses," the lead characters find themselves in a horrific situation as the lead male characters are curious about a particular story - I believe it was something about Dr. Satan. But why did this story intrigue them? Perhaps one of the character's had an obsession for the strange and unique, but why? In order to find your character in a horror film, you must uncover why your character performs certain actions and why he is in the situation he is currently in.

What is Your Energy?

Uncovering the energy of your character will really help differentiate yourself from this separate person. We each have a specific energy. Your personal energy may be happy, bright and active while a character's energy is dark, depressed and sloth-like. Uncovering this energy is a popular method used by actors who follow the Michael Chekhov book, "To the Actor." Determining a character's energy requires breaking down the objectives of a character, and uncovering his history.

What is Your Relationship to Others?

One of the most interesting ways of finding your character is learning about his relationship to others within the story. Why is he interacting with certain people? Why does he talk a certain way to one character and another way to a different person? Dissecting the relationships between your character and the others will help create a dynamic performance that will help support the often-time absurd or unreal scenarios found in horror movies.