How to Create Characters in Improv
Many years ago, when I first started teaching improv, we used to run a ten-week beginners’ course. One of the weeks was Character Week which was all about creating charatcers in improv.
It makes me laugh now when I look back at past me, who apparently thought I could download the entire idea of character into someone’s brain in just two hours.
On the other hand, maybe past me was onto something. Those early years of teaching character out of a box certainly did boil it down to a useful set of tools. That toolbox has grown considerably over the years, but fundamentally the question remains the same: how, as an improviser, can I construct a character on the fly who is very definitely not me, but is also consistent and believable?
Writers spend years crafting their characters. We have seconds, sometimes less.
Strangely, what this has boiled down to for me is a set of tools that help me not to think too much at all. I’m not trying to work out a detailed backstory, decide what the character’s favourite childhood memory was and then calculate how that might affect their behaviour in the scene. Instead, I’m trying, as much as possible, to inhabit the character. Or even “channel” them, if you’re up for being a bit woo-woo with me.
The character is already there
TJ and Dave have a lovely way of describing this idea. I’m probably not expressing it quite right, but it’s something along the lines of the characters we as improvisers jump into already somehow existing, and we’re just joining them for a little while.
They had a life before the scene started and will continue to have one after the scene has ended. We’re catching them in the middle of something rather than creating them from scratch.
There’s something magical about that which I love, but I also think it takes the pressure off. If I don’t have to invent an entire human being from nothing, I can instead think of it as trying on a different pair of shoes for a while. I can see how they fit, where they take me and what happens when I walk around in them.
That is, essentially, what the tools below are for.
I’ve divided them into two broad approaches: Outside In, where we start with something physical and allow it to affect the character underneath, and Inside Out, where we start with something emotional or psychological and allow that to affect how the character behaves physically.
I plan to write a full blog about each of these tools, so this page will gradually become a kind of character toolkit, with links to the individual techniques as they are published.
Outside In
One way of creating a character is to change something about what the audience can see or hear. This can be particularly useful in improv because you don’t need to know who the character is before you start. You can make a physical or vocal choice and then discover what that choice suggests.
1. Face
Our faces are remarkably expressive, and making a small change can be enough to start shifting us into another character. Rather than trying to make a whole “character face”, you can focus on individual features: the eyes, the mouth, the nose, the tension in the jaw, or even the way the face reacts to things.
You can also use an external object, such as a hat, as a starting point. Sometimes a change that seems almost ridiculously small can have a surprisingly large effect on how you feel and behave.
I’ll explore some of the different ways of using the face to find character in a future post, including creature comforts, noses, eyes and hats.
2. Body
The same principle applies to the body. Changing your physicality can change the person you feel yourself to be, sometimes before you have any idea who that person is.
There are lots of different things to play with here: the way your body is stacked, which part of you leads your movement, the gestures you habitually make, the overall shape of your body and the way you walk.
I’ll go into each of these in more detail in a separate post, because there’s a lot more to physical character than simply “walk differently”.
3. Voice
Voice is another quick route into character, and there is much more available to us than simply putting on an accent.
Pitch, speed, rhythm, speech patterns and the little emotional noises we make all affect how a character feels. Changing the rhythm of someone’s speech can tell us as much about them as changing their voice from high to low, and sometimes a sigh, hum or tiny noise of irritation can be more useful than a carefully constructed accent.
I’ll be unpacking some of these tools in a future post, including emotional noises, rhythm and the metronome, pitch, speed, accents and speech patterns.
4. Animals
Animals are one of my favourite ways into character because they give us a physical and behavioural filter without requiring us to invent a complete human being.
You don’t necessarily have to play an animal. You might borrow something from one: the entitlement of a cat, the nervousness of a rabbit, the territorial behaviour of a dog or the complete inability of a golden retriever to imagine that anyone might not want to be its best friend.
I’ve already written about this in 5 Animals That Are Like Improvisers.
Inside Out
The other approach is to start somewhere inside the character. Instead of changing the way they look or sound, we can begin with how they experience the world: what they feel, what they believe, what they want and what they need.
The two approaches aren’t mutually exclusive, of course. In fact, the interesting bit is usually what happens when they start affecting each other. A physical choice might give you an emotional state, which gives you a point of view, which changes your voice, which gives you a new physicality, and suddenly you have a person.
5. Emotional Resting State
Rather than playing the biggest possible emotion, what if you give your character an emotional state that they simply live in?
Maybe they’re slightly anxious. Maybe they’re permanently delighted. Perhaps they’re mildly irritated by everything around them, or they have a tendency to become emotionally attached to complete strangers.
I’m interested in the idea of an emotional resting state because it can give a character consistency without requiring the improviser to constantly think about what emotion they should be playing.
I’ve also written more about this already in Getting Emotional.
6. Point of View
Characters don’t just have emotions; they have opinions.
What does this person think is true about the world? What do they think other people are getting wrong? What is important to them? What do they have an inexplicably strong opinion about?
A point of view can be as simple as a worldview, a mantra, an opinion or even a catchphrase. It gives you a filter through which to experience whatever happens in the scene, which can be much more useful than trying to think of “characterful” things to say.
I’ll explore these different ways of finding point of view in a future post.
7. Wants
Wants are a useful shortcut because people are generally doing things for a reason, even if they don’t always know what that reason is themselves.
A character might have a very obvious want, a secret want or a dream that they haven’t told anyone about. I also like what I think of as “Fast Food Stanislavski”: rather than spending six months researching the character’s childhood, simply asking, What do I want right now?
Sometimes that’s enough to get you moving.
There are lots of ways to play with wants in improv, and I’ll be unpacking some of them in a future post.
8. Needs
Needs are related to wants, but they’re not necessarily the same thing. A character might want to win the competition, for example, but what they actually need is recognition. They might think they need to become rich when what they really need is to feel valued.
Needs can also give us quests, missions and archetypes to play with, particularly when we’re working with narrative improv.
I’ll explore those ideas in more detail in a future post, but here is a blog on playing the protagonist in the meantime.
9. Status
Status is another powerful way into character because it immediately changes the relationship between you and everyone around you.
How important does this person think they are? How important do they think everyone else is? Do they take up space, or apologise for being in it? Do they interrupt people, wait for permission, try to impress them or avoid their attention?
Status is something we communicate constantly, often without realising we’re doing it, which makes it particularly useful for improvisers.
I’ve already written more about this in Playing Status.
You don’t have to prepare like Daniel Day-Lewis
There is a slightly ridiculous comparison that I think is useful here.
Actors working in scripted film and theatre can spend months preparing a character. Daniel Day-Lewis is perhaps the most famous example of an actor taking this kind of preparation to an extreme.
For Lincoln, he asked for a year to prepare and spent much of that time reading and researching Lincoln and the historical period. For Phantom Thread, he learned about fashion and dressmaking, including cutting, draping and sewing, so that he could understand the world his character inhabited.
This makes perfect sense for a scripted role. The actor has the luxury of knowing what the character is going to do before they have to do it.
We don’t.
An improviser can be given a suggestion and be expected to become a 57-year-old dentist who has just discovered that his wife is an alien in the next few seconds.
There isn’t much time for a year of research.
This is why I find practical character tools so useful. They’re not intended to replace imagination or instinct. They’re a way of giving ourselves something to grab onto when we don’t have time to build a character from the ground up.
Wear your character like a thin veil
Del Close famously talked about wearing your character like a thin veil. I like that idea, although sometimes I think the veil is thicker than others.
Sometimes the character is very close to me. Sometimes it’s a thick curtain. Sometimes it’s literally a hat.
The point isn’t that one approach is right and another is wrong. This list isn’t the answer to creating characters in improv. It’s a collection of things to try, and over the years I’ve found that different improvisers respond to different tools.
Some people seem to find it very easy to improvise through a character filter. Others don’t. Some people can immediately imagine what another person might do, while others find it much easier to imagine what they would do in a given situation.
I’m definitely in the latter camp. I can usually improvise what I would do in almost any scenario. But how would I know what someone else might do? For me, character work is partly about giving myself enough distance from myself that I can discover the answer.
And perhaps that’s why I still enjoy teaching it after all these years. We’re not trying to manufacture a perfect character. We’re giving ourselves enough of a starting point to find someone who wasn’t quite there a moment ago.
You don’t have to be yourself
There’s a lot of advice in improv about being yourself, and I understand why. It can be a useful antidote to trying too hard to be funny or interesting. But it isn’t the only way to improvise. Some people find being themselves on stage easy. Some people don’t. Some people discover more freedom when they have a physical, emotional or vocal filter between themselves and the audience.
Wherever you are with that is OK. But if creating characters in improv doesn’t come naturally to you, it might be worth giving yourself a bit of a stretch.
Change your face. Change your body. Change your voice. Find an emotion. Have an opinion. Want something you wouldn’t normally want. Or put on a hat.
Then see who turns up.