When I'm preparing a role, I often find myself struggling to make decisions about my character. I'm terrified of making a choice - "what if it's wrong?!" I have a strong need to be right. That need is a holdover from my elementary school days where there always was a correct answer, and by finding it I would be rewarded in gold stars and verbal praise. The days of gold stars are over, the real world is a lot more muddled and what is correct is up for debate and interpretation.
This is intimidating. But if you turn it on its ear, there is something wonderful as well. You can't craft a character that is universally right, abstractly correct. So don't try. Find the skeleton of the character in the text and then apply parts of yourself until a whole person is formed.
Visual artists don't seem to have these same hang-ups. Look at all of these interpretations of characters from "Where The Wild Things Are". They are all quite different, but they also succeed in conveying the essence of the characters while also expressing what is unique about their illustrators:
All of the above images were found at TerribleYellowEyes.com a website dedicated to honoring Maurice Sendak's wonderful characters.
6 comments:
can't wait for the movie to come out!!
I'm super excited to see it too!
This is precisely why not getting cast in a role should not be taken personally. In the same way that there are a million right answers to character development from an actor's perspective, there are a million right answers from a casting perspective. Just because you didn't get cast doesn't mean you wouldn't have made a good ____, it just means you (physically or otherwise) did not fit the criteria they had in mind for this particular rendition...
Anonymous - thanks for chiming in from a casting perspective!
Yesterday's mail brought with it an amazing book about the Art of Maurice Sendak.
There is a reproduction of the original version of 'Where the Wild Things Are' which originally was called, 'Where the Wild Horses Are.'
Sendak changed the name and redrew the characters when he realized he could not draw horses. Heee.
"Where the Wild Horses Are"? I had no idea! Thanks for commenting.
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