“I simply channeled a character. This time I allowed the character to inhabit me.”
Shirley MacLaine
CHANNELING CHARACTER
When thinking about character, a topic that most beginner acting students find fascinating, is the mysterious process of ‘channeling character’. New actors often watch their favorite character actors on screen or stage and are in awe of their ability to surrender to the role. But the question that eludes most beginner actors is how does an actor truly channel a character? This is a sought-after question, and one I de-mystify in my acting classes at Cindy Tanas Actors Studio.
A PORTAL INTO CHARACTER
Playing a role is an intimate, personal, and uniquely individualized experience for each actor. Ask an actor how they find their way into inhabiting a character’s reality, and often the route is as varied and difficult to describe as it is to accomplish. At my acting school in Toronto, I’ve created a method that helps acting students find a clear path to opening channels for their characters. This integrated approach, created through years of in-class experience, helps actors approach characters in a way they can rely on and can infuse into their acting.
IFS – OPENING THE CHANNEL INTO CHARACTER
IFS (Internal Family Systems), is a cutting-edge integrative approach that uses subpersonalities, each with their own viewpoint and qualities, to help individuals better access the different parts of themselves. This system, along with Voice Dialogue (another sub-personality archetype approach), are two highly effective methodologies I combine in my work with actors when teaching them how to channel a character. By weaving together these two unique approaches (along with others not described here), acting students at my Toronto acting school learn to use the power of ‘sub-personalities’ to create deeply human, believable, and authentic characters. (Stay tuned for my upcoming article: Learn How Sub-Personalities Can Liberate The Actor).
DISSOLVING PROTECTORS
In acting classes focused on character, my approach is to help actors relax their instrument so they can dissolve the ‘protective blocks’ that get in the way of an open instrument/channel. These blocks are simply ‘protectors’ or defensive mechanisms that have been trying to keep the actor safe most of their life. The reason acting technique alone does not always free an actor instrumentally is because ‘protectors’ are not usually addressed in technique classes. An actor needs to get to the root of their inner acting blocks so they can be lifted. This then opens the pathway for sub-personalities to flow through the body easily and without strain.
In our Toronto acting class, acting students work in a physical way to help find their characters inside of them.
GETTING TO KNOW YOUR PARTS
Do you know what parts of you are protecting you? One way to find out is to ask yourself what is holding you back or sabotaging you in your acting or your life. These could be parts of you like: the inner critic, the self-conscious part, the perfectionist, the righteous part, or any fearful or anxious part of you. When one of these parts are active in you (i.e. – the ‘self-conscious part’), the part controls and monitors your performance. This can be a frustrating experience leaving you with a sensation of rigidity, control, and tension in the body.
ACCEPTING YOUR ACTING BLOCKS
Some beginner acting students simply try to get rid of or ignore their acting/life blocks. This approach, however, does not work and leads to more body tension. These parts of you are life energies that cannot be destroyed. When an actor rejects them, they don’t disappear. Instead, they create an underground movement and impact your acting subconsciously. The saying “what you resist persists” applies here. What these parts really need is acceptance and integration. In this way, they can be transformed, infusing a new vitality into your acting.
LIBERATING THE CHANNEL
As you continue to accept your ‘protectors’ and come into a compassionate relationship with them, they begin to transform and trust you to take the lead from ‘Self’. ‘Self’ is experienced by the actor as a grounded, centred, aware state of being that is dis-identified from the ego or personality. This state of being is in touch with your essential nature and flow state. It is from this centered place where you navigate your ship through your performances/life from capital “A” Actor or capital “S” Self.
CONCLUSION
You have many different ‘sub-personalities’ living inside you. The IFS system is one of the highly effective approaches I teach that helps the beginner actor access these inner parts and learn to channel characters. When these parts of you are free of what holds them back, they can bring a myriad of essential qualities to your acting like joy, strength, freedom, and peace. The ‘channel opens’, and you are free to surrender and shape the flow of your source energy into deeply inspiring performances.
For further reading you may enjoy my article on Archetypes and Acting.
For 2 excellent examples of channeling character, see the work of Meryl Streep in “Sophie’s Choice” and Daniel Day Lewis in “There Will Be Blood”.
SOPHIE’S CHOICE:
Cindy Tanas Actors Studio teaches acting classes for Theatre and Film in Toronto and the GTA, Collingwood and Southern Georgian Bay.