Characters: Writing for actors

If you write a screenplay that manages to make it past the first line of defense -- story analysts -- then the next set of Hollywood 'gatekeepers' -- agents -- then the third set of critical eyeballs -- producers -- eventually if you're lucky, your precious script will alight into the hands of an actor. And what are actors looking for? Here are some thoughts from Bryan Cranston, probably best known for the role of Hal, the father in "Malcolm in the Middle", which aired from 2000 - 2006:

“Any actor will tell you it’s all about the writing,” he said. “If it’s well-constructed, if it’s compelling—it’s exciting to do a project that’s so well-written.”

Cranston is currently the star of the AMC series called "Breaking Bad", a show created by X-Files alum Vince Gilligan. The show is featured in a Television Week article this week "He's Not 'Bad,' Just Written That Way". From the article, here is a description of the show's premise:

"The guy was already at his breaking point. He has a pregnant wife and a son with cerebral palsy who’s also a teenage wiseacre; he settled for teaching chemistry when he wanted to change the world; and, try as he might, he cannot find a way to motivate his high school students. Straining under the yoke of the family’s financial problems, he took a second job at a car wash to make ends meet. It already felt like a dead-end life for Walter White—and then he found out he had terminal lung cancer.

It’s the end of the line. How will he manage the oncoming mudslide of medical bills and provide posthumously for his family on a chemistry teacher’s salary?

If you were Walter White, emerging from the fertile brain of “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan (“The X-Files”), you might take a hard look at your chemistry background. You might even run into a ne’er-do-well former student and open a crystal meth lab with him, to try to score some big bucks to ensure your family’s financial future. Because, hey, if you’re Walter White, you’ve got nothing to lose."

Likely the single most important factor in an actor's response to the material is how they react to their character. And here is what Cranston has to say about Walter White:

"When he read the pilot script, he said, “I got it. A person like Walter White is a result of self-oppression or opportunity that was lost.”

Regret “falls into two categories,” Mr. Cranston said. “You can become calloused and hard and put down other people, or you can become like Walter and implode with the weight of regret, which made him soft in body and mind."

"I got it." From an actor's mouth to a writer's ears, pure music. An actor looks to see what makes a character tick, what is at their emotional and psychological core, what is going on beneath a character's dialogue and actions. So what does that mean for a writer? We had better understand our characters well enough to put that down onto the printed page because if we don't 'get' our characters, we can't expect actors to 'get' them either.

Which means it's important to remember: we're not only writing for the script analyst, the agent, the producer; at a fundamental level, we are writing for actors. And it doesn't take much of a look at Walter White's character to see why Cranston responded to it: tough family life, financial issues, soulless job, terminal lung cancer, crystal meth dealer. What an amazing amount of character 'stuff' for an actor to work with.

I'm mostly a movie guy, but I watch a lot of TV, too, in large part because TV allows the writers to explore characters to much greater depth than movies do, if only because a movie lasts 2 hours and a TV show can run for years. So if you aren't sure if your characters are deep or rich enough, check out a show like "Breaking Bad." I caught the pilot. It's a good show. And Cranston's performance is fantastic.