It is your job, as an actor, to interweave a character's personality with your own. You must be so intimate with the character that you can consciously supply it with its own subconscious.

In order to attain this relationship, a CONSCIOUS-subconscious technique can be vital to the actor.

You—have—a—very—meager—introduction.

If, in real life, you are told a few things about a complete stranger whom you are going to meet—

If you meet that stranger and hear him speak a few hundred words—

If you overhear a few people say a few hundred words to him—

If you overhear a few people say a few hundred words about him—

I doubt if you could consider this man a close acquaintance, you would not consider him an extremely close friend, and you certainly would not consider him your second self.

Yet, this is exactly what actors are expected to do.

An actor must take a few words, written by a writer, describing the character he will play—

Take a few hundred words said by the character—

Take a few hundred words said to the character by other characters in the play—

Take a few hundred words said about the character by other characters in the script—

Take a few hundred words of explanation and interpretation by a director and—

From this meager introduction, an actor must develop a relationship that is intimate enough to create audience identification with the character he is portraying.

An actor is the alchemist who is expected to take all the elements and put them together and produce an illusion that is spell-binding to an audience.

He must make gold from the base metals.

Each actor eventually develops his own way of accomplishing this, but the basic know-how is the same for all of them, and the end results must be the same: AUDIENCE IDENTIFICATION.

To develop this character relationship between the actor and the character—the actor must use every common denominator between real life and acting that he can possibly learn.

We have discussed one of these common denominators: the two laws of timing—which organize action and speech.

We will now use a second: the law of SUBSTITUTION—to CONSCIOUSLY construct a subconscious for a character.

By using the law of substitution, the actor can substitute the character's personality for his own while interjecting his own personality to flavor the character he is portraying.

I'll list five scenes from a motion picture script, including a "description" of the central character by the author, and some "direction" by the director.

You'll obtain:

    1. A few words of description by the writer.
    2. A few words of direction by the director.
    3. A few words spoken by the central character.
    4. A few words said to the central character.
    5. A few words said about the character by two different people.

From this information, you must pick enough "clues" to thoroughly know your central character: his personality traits, characteristics, inhibitions, fears, environment, social background—every clue you can find pertaining to the central character, Mackey, and his situation. From these you will give Mackey a subconscious of his own.

(Memorize Mackey's Speech)

FADE IN

I INT. CELL—NIGHT—MED. I

On EARL MACKEY, a slender red-headed man with clear gray eyes and slow, lumbering movements. He is sitting on a bunk. On a small table in front of him we see the trial transcripts and newspaper scrapbooks from which the context of this picture was taken.

(DIRECTOR’S NOTE) Mackey must play this scene with numbness. It must be with the feeling of a man who has completely given up.

MACKEY

My name is Earl Mackey. Three times I have died. Most people will only die once. Sudden death is easy. But when you know the week, the day and the hour that you are going to die . . . you die a little with each second. When they pull the switch, you're already dead.

(pause)

I have died three times ... three times I have gone through the last twenty-four hours of my life.
______________________________________________________

IO CLOSE SHOT—JACOBS                                                         IO

JACOBS

Little Frankie was my little girl, and now she's dead . . . she didn't know who it was. She just said "an old red-headed man, Daddy." That's all my little girl could say.

                                                                                    DISSOLVE TO:
______________________________________________________

II CLOSE SHOT—MRS. COOK                                                     II

MRS. COOK

Why, Earl Mackey lived with us for just about two years. Why, he could take care of my little girl just as well as I could, and if he was free today he could come right back here. I'd still trust him with my children.
______________________________________________________

20 INT. COURTROOM—DAY—CLOSE SHOT                           20
OF RUTH, FRANKIE'S SISTER, ON WITNESS STAND.

RUTH

Yes, sir. We asked her, "Who did that?" and she said, "The red-headed man at the boathouse."
______________________________________________________

75 MEDIUM SHOT—DEFENSE ATTORNEY ANDREWS 75

ANDREWS

There's still a lot of difference between "an" and "the." There just might be enough difference to save a man's life ... at least to get another reprieve.
______________________________________________________

After you have listed the clues, compare them with the following sample clues.

Clues from Playwright

        Death cell
        Slender
        Red-headed
        Gray eyes
        Clear eyes
        Slow
        Lumbering

Clues from Director

        Numbness
        Given up hope

Clues from Character

        Name
        Faced death three times
        In a position where he's been made to think of it each time over a set period of time

Clues from One Person Talking Which Indicates Some Background of Incident

        A little girl is dead
        She lived a little while after the incident that brought on her death
        She didn't know who brought on the incident
        She knew it was an old man
        She knew it was "a red-headed man"

Clues from Woman Who Knew Mackey (Character)

        lived in household
        lived there two years
        Took care of little girl as well as the mother could
        If he was free he could come back
        The mother trusts him completely with her children

Clues from Victim's Sister on Witness Stand

        Victim lived for a while after the incident that brought on her death
        Only made one statement
        The man

Red-headed man

        From Boathouse

Clues from Defense Attorney

        Conflict between "an" and "the"
        Save a man's life
        Another reprieve

Study both lists for conflicting clues. For instance, Mackey's attorney, Andrews, must have found conflicting clues that made him say, "There's still a lot of difference between 'an' and 'the.'"

Focus your aware-beam on the clues and the conflicting clues, and from your imagination develop an image of Mackey.

Focus your aware-beam on this image until Mackey becomes vividly clear. Use the clues and your imagination as material and tools to construct—consciously—Mackey's subconscious personality, made up of his fears, gratifications, inhibitions, complexes, habits, personality mannerisms, traits, etc. By using the law of substitution, move your own personality aside as far as you can and function atuarely within Mackey's personality.

Answer the following questions as if you were Mackey.

        What is your name? (Answer: Earl Mackey)
        How old are you now?
        Where were you born?
        What nationality were your father and mother?
        Do you remember the house you were born in?
        How long did you live there?
        What was it like?
        Describe in detail the house, each room—particularly your room. (As you "remember" it.)
        What did your father do for a living?
        Did your mother work?
        Any brothers and sisters?
        What is your first memory?
        When did you start to school?

Make up more questions—and give the answers.

From your storehouse of imagination, recall every possible detail that can help you develop your "Mackey" personality.

The "if" consciously puts you into Mackey's not-so-imaginary subconscious life.

You can't give Mackey a full psychoanalysis, but you can develop a background of findings which will serve your purposes as an actor.

Develop your background to the point of the memorized dialogue with a consciously constructed subconscious.

Don't try to act the speech. Let it be the outgrowth of this background you put into Mackey's "if" life.

What you are able to do now is the result of a steady progression which started with your aware-beam focused on a hand signal in the pauses of the "quality of mercy" excerpt; and flooded with life by the imagination from your subconscious-ocean.

By breaking the life of Mackey down into its finest parts (lowest common denominators), you will find that it will reassemble itself into a complete whole with a solid line made up of small units.

In building a part, if you have trouble at any particular scene, go back to the segment that motivated that scene and break it down to still finer detail in your imagination.

Because you have had FAITH and kept yourself AWARE, you have reached an understanding of how to use the actor's LAWS OF TIMING and the LAW OF SUBSTITUTION.

These laws are mathematically true.

They are scientifically true.

They are logically true.

They are artistically true.

You have created and transmitted emotion by your craftsman's use of tools which you forged mechanically.

You are beginning to master the science underlying the art of acting.

Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here