At its simplest, through the posture and movements of your body; through the words you speak and the manner in which you deliver them. 

Some might say that the hardest part is to “get out of the way of the character.”  It is not only difficult, it is impossible.  Don’t look for ways to remove yourself from the process, but rather how you are needed to see it realized.

You cannot disassociate yourself from your portrayal of the character.  You are as much the character as the painter is the painting, the sculpture the bust, the musician the symphony.  You are the artist and the medium, creator and creation, both at the same time.  In your absence, the “art” ceases to exist.

Certainly some of the character is not you, and that is the “acting” part of the process.  But you should seek in yourself what you share with the character and use that as your foundation.  The character sometimes is more like you than not.

Character is not developed or arrived at, but revealed, as the events and actions cause the masks to fall away, leaving the true essence of the character.

Through your day, be open and aware to opportunities for observation.  Part of the connection the audience makes to the characters on the stage comes from when they recognize the characters as resembling someone in their life, whether favorably or not. Observing and imitating the manner and behavior of people around you is helpful towards creating a realistic character with whom the audience will identify.

Repetition = Character.  Character is what you’ve been caught doing.  Character is not what you think, it’s what you do.  As the old saying “Do as I say, not as I do” implies, your actions, while not indicative of your intent, are a truer reflection of your character than your words. You may have desires or beliefs or opinions, but it is how you act upon them that reflects your character.  No one can know by observation what is in your heart, but they see the workings of it in your behavior.  Character = Action.

Every character has a goal.  It is never to talk, but to do or get or motivate another to do or get.  Your objective must have meaning and value.  You must want it more than anyone wants to deprive you of it.   It should be action oriented, not to be but to do.  It should be measurable to the extent that you know when you have succeeded, and until then you continue on. 

Most importantly is “why.”  You often hear, “why did you do that?” because the rest is perceivable by the senses.  Who, what, when, where, even how, can be understood through sight, hearing, smell, touch, maybe even taste, as well as the mind.  Why is known only to the heart and soul.

You aren’t learning lines; you are learning the role of the character.  When you work on your lines, you should at every opportunity practice them as you will move with them. Not that every line requires a change in body, but you cannot separate mind and body, so must you not separate the line from the action.  It’s not enough to think of your actions and visualize them as you rehearse your lines.  You must use the body to move the body, not the mind.  Of course, don’t get caught doing this at work.

Determine what your goal is, what it is you want.  Understand the purpose behind it.  Perceive the obstacles in your way.  Itemize the actions open to you to evade them in your pursuit.  Make your choice.  What the advanced knowledge of the story affords you is the understanding that regardless of the choices available at any time, the path taken is the only possible action a character can take under the circumstances.

“If you are ever without a proper object of attention then you are empty.  And any emptiness on the stage will be filled up with either dead moments or clichéd ones.  The key to acting is to apply our inner life to the circumstances of the character.  In this way, you do not just play yourself; you use yourself in the service of the part.  If you are absent, the part will be lifeless.  But if only you are present, the character will disappear.”
    -         Stanislavski

You have control over two things: your body and your voice.  Even your mind itself can wander: who’s in the audience; what’s my next line; how long to intermission; what’s for dinner.  Not even emotion is yours to control.  Emotions are our reactions to events, which you do not control either.  You are never emotional without an outside force exerting upon you.  Stanislavski recognized this, and began his work toward Emotional Recall and Sense Memory techniques.  But he came to realize that trying to recall recent events for their emotional content was inadvisable since the memories and connected emotions were often to fresh and raw.  Older memories faded and did not induce the appropriate emotional reaction.  Ultimately, he acknowledged that these were the memories and emotions of the actor, not the character, and that they could not apply, and their recall would take the actor out of the moment, so he moved on. 

You cannot control the other actors, making them move and speak as you would have them.  You cannot control the lights, the prop phone, the doorknob.  You cannot control the audience, forcing their reaction to your performance.  They will like it or not, be swept away or walk out, “get it” or not.  That’s up to them.  All you can do is tell the story truthfully to your best ability.

Some have argued that there is no character, only an actor on stage reciting the playwright’s words with intention, and from that the audience perceives the existence of a character.  In that case, it is just you on stage telling the story, and that’s just barely more truthful than you pretending to be someone else.  Actually, there is nothing truthful about the play anyway – these “people” do not exist, their words never spoken, these events never happening.  

It’s all make believe.  And maybe that is really the phrase to keep in mind as you go through the journey – Make Believe, or in other words, Create Truth.