Assignment 2 – Acting 103
Hi everyone! This week’s assignment has two parts:
- Memorize this very short monologue, and practice it as three different characters would deliver it. One character might be confessing to a priest; another, confessing reluctantly to the cops; the third, bragging to some buddies.
“I took him down to the river, and I shot him. I threw his body in the water but he wouldn’t sink. I tried everything but I couldn’t get the body to go under.”
Part 2:
- Watch the videos below, focusing on how the actors create different characters. All of them have one actor playing several roles. Focus on how each character is manifested, i.e. – what’s different about the actor’s voice, posture, energy, personality? How does this come across?
In the video “Travius”, one of my early films, actor Jay Irwin creates several characters with different personality types.
In “I Love Her,” one of the actors plays a man with two different personalities.
In “Alien Side Story,” my goal was to create two characters who are very different from each other. In this one, I wasn’t trying to be subtle; I wanted to create two radically different individuals. (The style of acting is a little larger than life.)
In “The Break,” once again I’m focusing on creating characters with different personalities, but the difference is more subtle.
In “Joe Clone Joe,” the three characters are all copies of the same man, so I was keeping the differences between them almost non-existent.
