MAKING MEMORIES, CREATING CHARACTER

Always tell the truth. It's the easiest thing to remember — David Mamet

I’ve just flown to Tennessee for a TV series. But on-set this week, our team on a film in New Zealand has been creating group scenes with startling veracity and immediacy. Sometimes these scenes are in support of the big stars who have major dialogue, and sometimes the group-talk itself is the focus of the scene. I have been standing by the monitor and it has been exciting to watch these scenes come to life so persuasively.

Whether you are a lead, a support or guest, a featured extra or part of the background action, you are going to be confronted with the challenge of improvising conversations with your fellow actors in a convincing, non-performative, naturalistic way.

Actors want to find a way to be real, but also to create the illusion of existing smoothly within the world of the drama. In the event that you need a moment of improvisation, you want some questions and conversational gambits that drop you into the world of the drama and create the right degree of intimacy.

"DESCRIBE YO…