Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Acting and Believability in your Characters

The other night Tom Hanks was on Charlie Rose. It was a fascinating interview, however, I found one part of it particularly valuable.
(it's something I want to be sure and remember to make my animation stronger)
He talked about why some of his most successful performances were successful (almost every role Tom Hanks plays is believable and convincing).

Anyways, his trick is to find out how his character is alone in the world and think about that as much as he can.
"In the past, Hanks has described himself as, deep down, a loner. ‘Everybody has something that chews them up and, for me, that thing was always loneliness."
Loneliness is something everybody can relate to. We all realize we are alone in the world and desperately try to form relationships to appear otherwise.
This is something everyone in the audience can relate to, because everyone knows what it feels like to be alone.
Tom Hanks thinks about this and incorporates it into his character's body language throughout the film.
Anyways.. I just thought it was interesting and a good thing to think about when animating characters and making them come to life.

Here's the full episode if you're interested.
(it's mostly on the upcoming Angels&Demons)

4 comments:

Alonso said...

thanks for finding this! interesting acting tip

Alonso said...

hey, do you remember where Tom talks about this? I watched it but he mentions it around 33 minutes, but doesn't talk about the things you mention

teresa said...

hmm, shoot... Now that I listen to it again, I might have mistakenly mixed up some parts of it.
The loneliness is talked about around 34-37 min. Around 51 min they talk about authenticity in acting... and around 42min they talk about Tom being a great actor especially around the time of Apollo 13.. and he started catching on and getting better at acting by really listening in the scene even when he didn't have dialog.
I had quite the discussion with my mom after this show and we talked quite a bit after it.. I ended up typing the stuff we talked about and I could have sworn it came from that interview... I apologize for mixing it up. So embarrassing.
I did, however, google Tome Hanks and loneliness when I wrote this blog posting to see if I could find anything further on his take on it.. and that quote I mention is most definitely from him.
I think I got it from this site...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/starsandstories/5257472/Tom-Hanks-interview-on-the-new-Dan-Brown-movie--Angels-and-Demons.html

Anyways, sorry for mixing things up.. but an interesting thought none the less. :)

Alonso said...

yes totally, I appreciate your thoughts as much as Tom Hanks. I'll go ahead and attribute the ideas to you and your mom :)

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