Throughout this, we refer to "actors" and "characters." When we speak of what you, the actor does, this is the space you must exorcise—thoughts of acting, of filmmaking, of story, rather than being in the moment. You should have an instinctive feeling of how "strong" you are, say, but I’d rather give you a hint that you "feel” capable than give you a score. Therefore, I maintain any numbers for my own judgment, and you maintain your memories of situations in which you failed or prevailed. This keeps you in character; dare we say in fact that it enhances your dispossession. If the numbers feel wrong, then tie goes to my feelings as an artist and storyteller. Our oracle, however, leaves plenty of room for fictional interpretations, so this rarely if ever comes up. But we will get into that when we talk of the nitty gritty of what we do with the oracle, something that may only be of interest to a select few directors.
When I speak of character, this is the fictional body and its fictional abilities in which you find yourselves and so who you now are. The actor is irremovable from the equation, ultimately, and so rather than subsume or delete the actor’s personality, that personality should inform the performance, adding dimensions to the character no written being could possess. Improvisation causes this naturally as a byproduct. No character will ever be three-dimensional enough without the personality of its performer (again, well-cast). So, admitting this from the beginning and thinking of it not as an interference but the very soul of the art, I encourage actors to combine these personas. They should think of themselves as themselves first, with all their histories, teleported into these characters’ bodies in the realm of Hearth (or whichever world your narrative involves).
There is acting, then there is character acting, then there is method acting. Acting is simply performing as if the events of the screenplay are real. Most leading actors stop here. Movie stars are paid to be recognizable in every film. Their characters are vessels for their own personas—even though these can and usually are, themselves, character constructions.
Character acting is the act of disappearing into a character, co-creating with a unique performance, added to the idea of performing the scenario. Typically, this is done by supporting actors who can get typecast if they are too good at certain kinds of character. When the common man recognizes them at all, they know them as "that guy" from whichever of their films they know best.
Method acting is the almost meditative technique whereby one subsumes their own reality—and possibly their personality—entirely, in favor of the film’s and the character’s. I think of these things differently than most of my fellows, favoring method even among crew. More importantly, on this production I have decided to invert some of their relationships.
On After Falling, I trained my leading lady, Samantha Lincoln, how to become my Lady Winterling using Method, and set a character actor, one Mr. Carol McCort, as her Reginald Fenton. In the supporting roles, a myriad of charming and witty folk, from leading actors to comedians, played versions of themselves doing what would normally be the movie star "situational" acting.
I cast Miss Dunne from her tapes. Something about her leapt off the screen. So I auditioned Ashur against her with scenes I wrote especially for this purpose, not intended to be incorporated into the story. The scenes proved so popular among the cast, however, that references to them made their way into some of the improvisational dialogs later, as if their characters recalled a memory. When the studio altered the storyline and Amon Ur was to become a male character, I immediately thought of her as the new Dawn. I knew, despite the script having essentially given Dawn nothing to do, that somehow she was the most important cast member, and so the only already cast actress must remain, and in that role. It seemed that no matter who discovered Dawn’s sleeping body, hero or villain, they fell in love with her on sight. She was the heart of the film, against which all others should be measured. At very least, my Ashur actor would have an established, tragic backstory to draw from when he gazed upon her there, sleeping rather than facing him with strength.
This sparked something in me. A new frame; a new way of viewing the fantasy story—as a Campbellian journey through the subconscious of a single person who is in some liminal state in our world. Instead of the simple children’s story I’d inherited1, adding an extra layer, hinting at us being in the dream of the princess, but never actually seeing the real world. Instead, we are only hinted at real events by the issues her dream needs to work out! But the characters, who are all facets of the dreamer, remember, drift in and out of lucidity at closeness to death (for this is when they are closest to waking). In the case of my actors, I decided they were having the collective dream of the Jungian unconscious, becoming themselves—literally, transforming from Princess Dawn into Heather Dunne the actress—in moments where the wall grew thin.2 In other words, as she was Dawn speaking dialog reminiscent of Dunne’s auditions, she would get a sort of deja vu sensation, all the way up to and including a full awakening. I kept her next to me for all scenes despite her lack of them, to advise on what characters should/shouldn’t do.
So I will call upon the actors to character act until they "break" character, and the fourth wall, at a moment's notice. I let them dictate this—when something hits close to home, let it. React as yourself for a moment. We protect the audience from the garishness of the fourth wall’s breakage by constructing a false fourth wall, encased by a real fourth wall (or fifth wall). Breaking character becomes in-character, and there is no reason for the other actors to break along with the first, but to merely notice, in-character, the change.
Price3 will, needless to say, not be a fan of this idea. He hates method acting in general, let alone “fourth wall” talk. I will have Heather sell it to him. She seems to be the only one that can mollify his protestations. If I were a lesser director, I might bring up that he has not had a job in five years due to a rapidly shifting landscape of Hollywood4, that the wise old wizard roles are all Shakespearian actors can get currently, and that he signed a contract. Luckily for all of us, I am not that type of director.
The Peter Alan draft.
In what footage has been discovered, it is often hard to tell just how mad or sane the cast had become, due to this exact idea. When an actor comes out of character, are they insane people having a moment of clarity, or an actor losing even more touch with the film of it all, confused by the reality of the movie precisely because it has become realer than the actor’s world? In other words, are they realizing they are not a character, or forgetting that The Realm is fictional and acting as though themselves? We can never really know.
Sir Christopher Price, whose character of Ambassador Cyrus was the least changed between drafts.
After nearly collapsing due to over-betting on the gladiator and anamorphic epics of the 60s, the studio system was forced to turn to a new school of younger filmmakers and lower budgets: Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Brian DePalma, Ridley Scott, and John Milius, among others, emerged rapidly as the new voices. Their interests skewed away from the Bible and toward creating new myths using science fiction and comic books, and a nostalgia for the 1950s (itself a kind of new myth). The “blockbuster” was born.