Building a Character

[Bill Mullins]

"The first thing I remember figuring out for myself was that I wanted to be a dfinite personality. I had heard a man say he liked a certain fellow because he always was the same dirty damn so and so. You know, like Larsen in Jack London's 'Sea Wolf'. He was detestable, yet you admired him because he remained true to type. Well, I thought that was a swell idea so I developed a philosophy of my own, be your type! I determined that what I was, I'd be that, I wouldn't teeter on the fence."


W.C. Fields, quoted in a 1935 interview,
recounted in The Man on the Flying Trapese: The Life and Times of W.C. Fields, Simon Louvish

[Guest]

True, you should be yourself though. Only a hightened form of yourself. One who amuses people at the very least. I spent a long time finding a character and then finding who I was. I finally came to the conclusion that I was lost. Then when I gave up, I found who I was and what I wanted to be to an audience. Lets face it, thats what a character is: Who we want to appear to be to an audience.

I take the character from my friend Paul. He is what everybody needs him to be. He is a man Wh0re of sorts, but he is affluent and easy going. Never critical, mean, or even sad. He is the friend you want around.

Could you imagine if our character was a personal always depressed and sad. What a labor it would be to go see it perform.

[Guest]

hmmm...Steven Wright the comic?

[Nicholas Carifo]

Don't know if they are still in print, but I'd suggest the magic books "Find the Stuff That's You" and "Do the Stuff That's You" both by Chris Carey. They hit the points mentioned above right on the head and help magicians in particular "find the stuff" that fits his/her character.

Nicholas Carifo