On Creating Characters…

A man named Christopher Booker wrote that there are only 7 stories that exist in the world. For all the years of human development and innovation, every story we tell can still be boiled down to a few prototypical blueprints. It’s not a far stretch, by that logic, to believe that there are a limited amount of characters that might exist within those stories as well. 

When I read a spec, see concept art, or listen to a description of who a character is, my mind goes to an image of a large block of marble/stone/clay. This represents an archetype, a caricature, a stereotype, some extreme corner of a spectrum that generally makes sense for what’s given to me. It’s my job as an actor to whittle away at that unrefined block until I find something that is grounded, that speaks truthfully to the humanity of the character and respects the reality that they perceive. There is hardly ever just one version of this.  

What I’ve learned is that once you have the confidence to know that you’ve prepared and put out your best, rejection slides off of you like rain off a frog. Two people can whittle down their blocks the exact same way, with all the same inflections and the same breaths. But that final ingredient to your refined block of art, that personal spark that is unique to each and every one of us? That’s what makes the listener cock their head and say “Who’s that?” Accepting that you’re right for the roles you get, and not for the ones you don’t, is a crucial prerequisite to succeeding in the voiceover business, and practically any professional artistic endeavor, for that matter. I rest easy knowing there is more than enough work to go around, more than enough room for my little blocks of art.