Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Rappers and MCs have always had an alias. Building your character, it helps you to get things out.
You always want to put your character through different experiences and see how it shapes their worldview.
There's always a concern as an actor that you'll be boring unless your character is swinging from a chandelier.
I always devise a background so that it makes what your character goes through logical and keeps up the continuity.
I create my own backstory regardless of if I'm told something about the background or not. There's always more that you can develop in your head that makes a character more layered, more honest.
And at NYU, I went to the Atlantic Theater Company, and they have two main points. One of them is to always be active in something instead of just feeling it. And the other is figuring out your character.
One exercise I always do when I'm getting to know a character is ask her to tell me her secrets. Sit down with a pen and paper, and start with, 'I never told anybody...' and go from there, writing in the voice of your character.
Robert De Niro taught me how to listen, and how to be part of the conversation. It's not just about reading your lines and saying what's in the script; you have to understand your character, along with the other characters so that you can always respond.
I know how to hit a mark without looking. I instinctively know where my eye line should be. That's all 100%. But your character and the story are always different, so the emotional part is not muscle memory. You're still surprised by stuff and get the adrenaline.
I think it's hard to differentiate between your wrestling character and your real character - you kind of end up being both. I've always been my wrestling character in and out of the ring and in and out of the dressing room, and I was always really respected in the dressing room by the other wrestlers.
This is what I would say to my pupil: 'You have become only your fame and left behind most of who you were. How are you going to deal with that? Will you lose that person forever? Have you become someone else without really knowing it? Do you always have to stay in character for people to like you? Do you know that you are in character?'.