Will

by Will Smith

His “want”/ dramatic quest is the first pillar of behavior. What someone desires is a portal into the essential truth of their personality. If you want to understand why someone did something, you need only answer the question, What did he want? An actor’s overarching focus is to unearth the “system of wants” that intertwine and sometimes collide within the mind of a character to create their psychological driving force. Acting is like building out a new personality for yourself from scratch. (Once you have a foundational comprehension of a character’s central motivation, the real acting fun begins with the second question: Why does he want it? But that’s for later.) The war between desire and obstacle is the heart and soul of dramatic storytelling (sometimes, the obstacles are internal—those are the fun ones). In filmmaking circles, there is a simple axiom that describes the structure of a great character journey: somebody wants something badly, and goes for it, against all odds. (Another variation is, a person falls into a hole, and tries to get out.) If you think about any movie you’ve ever liked, any character you’ve ever rooted for, it’s because they wanted something you could relate to and they struggled, risking life and limb, to achieve it. What’s true about movies is also true about life: You tell me what you want, and I’ll tell you who you are.