It's not always what you left out, sometimes it's what was already there.

Character work.  It's not always what you left out... sometimes it's what was already there that is causing a separation.  Judgment can be our own worst enemy, but observation is our best.  Human beings are creatures of habit.

Understanding the primal need as a human being can take you to the truth.  Start there.  When your objective stems from a primal need it will be come stronger.

Every human being has a soul, an aura, an essence of who they are.  Don't leave out the soul or you have only created a character not a human being.   Find out what that human being breathes for, what makes him or her tic.  What feeling do you get when you step into the shoes? You have to make those shoes your own. Your choices have to be strong, but let me follow that by saying they have to stem from the truth!!  Don't make your character based on things you made up out of the blue.  Everything has a reason.  Find it.

What inside you is it that is stopping you?  That could be a number of things.  If you are working on a character that may be gay and you have some issue about being gay, then you can't find the truth. If you are taking on the part of a prostitute but you can't get past thinking prostitutes have to be sluty, then you will not create a human being.  If you create a human being based on one word like "slutty", "mean", "dumb" or anything that sheds a negative light on that character, then you are going to create a one-sided character.  Others can call you these names, but not many people call themselves those names.

Take your EGO out of the equation.

What is Character?

What is a character?

Character to me means: a human being that IS who they are now by the events in their life up until this very moment, which is the present.  The present is where people can "live in the moment", which I am sure is a term you have heard.  A human being is affected every day by the life they live, or have lived.  It affects our egos and, in turn, changes our lives. Our ego is what creates our thoughts in turn creating our future.

Now, there are many roles you may not have to do a lot of character work for at all.  Your "character", YOUR past, may be perfectly fine. You do not need to make any adjustments.  Your ego will work perfectly fine as this character.  That doesn't take out the fact that the scene needs to still be made personal to you.  You will still have to make the truth out of the lines.  I will still need to see a relationship between you and any other being around you.  Old friend or brand new enemy, a character exists..  The same as when you meet or see someone for the first time.  Your mind or, as I said, Ego makes a judgment of who you think that person is... You already know if you are going to like or dislike this person.  You may learn to be wrong, but you make judgments.  Anyone that says they don't at all are either very enlightened or is an idiot...  Lots of people are idiots..  

More on Character.

A human being takes a lifetime to create.  How do you expect to understand everything about them and their choices in a week?  Furthermore, during that week, you worked on the script, etc. for 3 days out of the 7, and 2 1/2 of those days were spent learning the lines. Those lines may not mean anything to you;  but you were able to memorize all of them perfectly.  Then you get to the audition or get up in class to show a "worked on" project, and all you know is the lines...

Does most of that sound perfect?  Does knowing the right lines mean that you did enough work?  If so, then let me ask you what you would do if the director said, "Now lets throw away the lines and just improv the scene freely" or  "Tell me a little bit about your character".  Would you know what the human being living in these circumstances would actually do?  If you do know what that human being would do, then you are half way there.  Would you be able to live in the moment not thinking of lines, the camera, or the actor/actress across from you that may royally suck as an actor?  We have to create "real life" in imaginary circumstances.

Actors tend to take this the wrong way when you first hear it - "It's not all about the lines".  No, I do not mean you don't need to know your lines.  I am just saying those lines mean something; and a human being usually says something for a purpose.  Real human beings live the way they do because of the way they grew up, and the way their previous choices have made their lives.  Figure out who the human being is whom you are playing, and "HOW" they became who they are.  Then, put yourself (character) in those circumstances.

When you finish with a great scene, you will not know what happened; nor will you probably think you did it right?  The words that come out of your mouth will be - "I feel like I did nothing".  That is when you know you are starting to truly live in the moment.  CONTINUE STUDYING BECAUSE THAT'S JUST THE TIP OF THE PENIS.  I mean iceberg.

OUR JUDGMENT IS ONLY OF UNDERSTANDING.(character)

In life our philosophy and the way we view everyday as an actor, human being, artist, has to be different than most people you know. You have to be in a place of freedom and endless imagination. We have to be able to get ride of all of our judgment about human beings. We have to be able to only observe and understand everyone and not judge their choices in life, but understand why they chose them.  When you can look at anyone and understand why they make those choices only then can you develop that character without judgment.   By judging our character we have already gotten rid of any original thought.  If we do not agree with our characters then we can never be in the moment.  I am not saying if you play Hitler you have to hate Jews in your everyday life, but when you are in the moment and working on set then you have to see it from his shoes and the wonderful things he was doing for the world by getting rid of a race that was dirty and spreading disease..  This is of coarse not what I think, this is the view of Hitler.  He did not think of himself as an evil man but a man that was helping the world.   We can not Judge, we have to be able to understand every side of the story non objectively.

Character, emotions, and a booger.

Scene work. After you have truly let go of the character to live fully in their shoes and circumstances are you then forced to forget all of the work you have just done. If you are thinking about what your next line is then you have already taken yourself out of the moment. In life we never think about our next line. All we do is live and go after things we want. We all do things for specific reasons. We as human beings never do anything with out a meaning behind it. As an actor we must have meaning. If we move, or pick our nose, we must have meaning! For example, if we pick our nose because the director said to, then it is a technical move. That move needs to be natural. It has to be because you have a booger. As goofy as it may sound to use something that simple, this goes for something that is even as heavy as crying. Do not cry because the script says to cry. Find the understanding of the scene so that you do not have to choose an emotion. You should never choose an emotion, you should only choose your objective. Let the objective, and relationships, and circumstances create a natural emotion in the moment. You could cry, laugh, or get angry. None of which would be wrong if you are truly living in the moment and the circumstances.