Acting

Personalization - Key facts and phrases

Aight. Let's face it. We've all seen some actors who get off on just going up and doing something and making it look like something's happening and getting admired, when the truth is, nothing is actually happening. Sometimes they make a shit load of money doing it. Sometimes you walk away from a movie and you're just like that was kinda a shit movie but the special effects were good. The point is that even if you're good at faking something, you can't ever lie to an audience. They'll always know. They just will. Y'all know what I mean. Next time you watch a movie or you go see a play or damn it even happens when someone sings. When someone's really invested in something and the words coming out of their mouth have some meaning to them it just hits you. They're not faking it. The words that they're saying have a meaning to them and when we see that happen you kinda can't help but just like have something happen to you. Singers are like a really fucking cool example. There's some really chill frikken examples on like talent shows on tv like Americas got talent and shit where the singer sings a song but they're singing a song because a family member or someone inspired them to sing it. And it's like when you watch some of them, even when they fuck up a note or if they can't say a word or whatever it is, it's like you don't care because the words suddenly have meaning to them and you're just like dammmnnn and u can't help but get emotional about it. So, like, how does an actor do that? And to do it you start of with key facts.

So like let's pretend like my character says these things during the play that are key facts. And I'm just gonna pick 4 but in reality there's probably about 30-50 things.

Home. "I really miss home"
Ice. "I want ice in my drink now"
Mom "wish you were here mom"
Orange "Haven't had an orange in forever"

Then probably from those lines in the play the things that would be key facts are home and mom. Yeah, I like ice in my drink and yeah it's kinda important to my character at the time but unless I couldn't live without ice then it's not that important to my character. Same with the orange. Yeah I haven't had one in forever and it's good but unless I was on a deserted island with nothing but a orange tree for food then the orange isn't that important to me.

But to my character, my moms mentioned a lot in the script. And so she's important to me. Same with the home. In the script I keep referring back to my home and wishing that I was there or something similar.

So you write down all these key facts and then in a notebook you write at the top of each page one key fact. So like in the example I'd do one page with the word 'mom' at the top of the page and then another page with the word 'home' at the top of it. Then I go through the script and every time something is mentioned about my home, for example, I'll write it down under the word home on my page. And I keep doing this and adding onto the last sentence. So let's say as an example I found two references to my home in the script. My page would kinda look like this:

Home
I really miss home. The tree out front drove my allergies crazy. Remember when I fell up the stairs? I can't remember if it was painted white or creamy yellow?

And then once you get all the references to your home then you do the freestyle writing or whatever it's called. It's kinda like you just write non stop without thinking about what you're writing, without correcting mistakes, not worrying about punctuation and shit like that. Basically not stopping to think you just write whatever comes to you and you don't stop to think about it. You just write it and if you can't think of anything to write well then just write that until something comes to you and then write it. And you do it for like 5 minutes on each word. So you'd read the whole thing of references you wrote down like you were reading a book and then when you get to the end of it then you just continue writing whatever comes to you. So like as an example:

...white or creamy yellow? I remember doing weird shit there like trying to climb up to my window but not making it and I'd fall over and I didn't really care if i fell because there was a tree there and it was fuckkng huge and the branch would always ram into my leg and up my thigh and into my ass cheek and it would hurt like hell and now idk what I'm saying but idc but then I wish I could go back and look out that window again....

And like you get the idea. You just keep going until 5 minutes is up. The main thing is there's no wrong thing to write you just write whatever comes to you. You do that with every key fact every day for 5-7 days and at the end of it I don't know how to explain it. Now when you talk about your home it has meaning to you. It's all imaginary shit but it really means something and it just kinda works. Idk how to explain it.

So that's key facts. Key phrases are baso the same except it's a phrase the character says.  So like as an example:

"My life changed the minute I saw you"
"I hate the way this fucking car jumps when I start it"

So like the first one about my life changing would be a key phrase and the second one about the car wouldn't be. And you kinda do the same with the writing on the key fact. You just freestyle write for about 5 minutes a day just on the phrase. Because it's a phrase you don't need to look for other things about it in the script. Hope that makes sense. You just write on the phrase. The first line is actually from a thing I'm working on rn so it's the same with the key fact thing. Idk how to explain it but now when I say this it suddenly means something important and special. That line now means something really important to me when I say it.

So like that's like the first part of personalization with the meisner technique. And also like this is way different than what I get taught at school drama with schools version of "script analysis". With my school we're supposed to do shit like what's your characters blood type, do they have  pets?, what types of pets, does your character have allergies, what street does he live on, what's his favorite food, what size shoe do you wear and like all that kinda shit. I think that stuffs shit because knowing your characters blood type or what their favorite food is or some of the other things doesn't really do anything for you. At least for me it doesn't when I act. If it was important then the playwrite would've mentioned it in the script. Who the fuck cares if I have a dog or if I have a low or high iq? What's that actually mean?? It doesn't really mean anything. I'm not in front of a camera playing a teen that's high asf and thinking to myself "I'm blood type a" or "my favorite food is chicken nuggets". Nah, I'm in a scene where there's something going on that's really important and I'm trying to do something  (usually) and I'm high. The what I'm doing and the relationship to the other people there with me is more important than my blood type, etc.

So next time you see some really good acting, now you can get an idea of what did the actor do in the whole months beforehand during rehearsals. And peace out mofos.