BUILDING A CHARACTER

UTA HAGEN’S 9 QUESTIONS

Whenever an actor takes up a new character, you must not only understand it, but know it inside and out. The
script will often provide most of the details and for the ones missing, the actor will have to invent them. For
this prepping process Uta Hagen’s 9 questions is perfect.

Uta Hagen was a legendary actress and teacher who had acting roots to the famous Group Theater in addition
to teaching at New York’s Herbert Berghof Studio. Some famous students she taught included Al Pacino, Jack
Lemmon, and Mathew Broderick to name a few. She also wrote two books on acting: Respect for Acting and A
Challenge for the Actor. Most of Uta Hagen’s techniques were based on the methods of Konstantin
Stanislavski.

After answering these questions, an actor will not have to think how his or her character will react when
playing a scene. Everything will be there in these 9 questions.

1. WHO AM I?
This is an obvious question, but what answers you seek as an actor is important. It must answer the
character’s name, age, education, physical traits, fears, ethics, beliefs, likes, and dislikes. Let’s go
through them one by one:

Name: First thing you must learn is the character’s name. The name of a person always tells you where
he or she belongs, what their family is. Often in some part of the world names tell the class of a person.
Hence, note those smalls details associated with the name.

Physical traits: Analyze the script for any physical disabilities or qualities that stand out for the
character. Like in My Left Foot, Christy Brown suffers from cerebral palsy. Only his left foot is
functional, and rest of the body is paralyzed. Daniel Day Lewis had to design his character around this
physical trait. Most characters will have some kind of physical trait. It most likely won’t be as
prominent as the Christy Brown example, but there will be some. Magic and superpowers even fall
under the category of physical traits.

Relationship with other characters: Make a list of other characters and note how your character is
affected by the relationship with them. Few of them will be her friends, few will be her family, and few
will be her enemy. Relationships with other characters will define the character’s behavior while
interacting with them during the scene.

Education: Find out what kind of education the character has. If the character is highly qualified, it will
reflect in his/her body language and how he or she converses with other characters. Often education
will tell you the skills of the character. Knowing the skills of the character is beneficial if you do some
research and learn them. Your performance will be more believable.

Beliefs: Our own personal beliefs make us what we are, how we think, and how we handle certain
situations. A character will have his or own personal opinions as well. For me, this is one of the most
 important aspects of any character to analyze. It will help you answer specific questions like how the
character will react or what actions a character must take in givens situations.

Fears: Another important aspect to learn about a character is his or her fears. List out the fears in the
front page of the script. As the story goes along the character will try to address his fears. Either he or
she will succeed or fail, but he or she will address his or her fears.

Keeping the above in mind, you will begin to get to know the character you are going to play.

2. WHAT TIME IS IT?

Significance of time plays a key role in any story. What it does is give you its set of rules that you
cannot break. Learn in which century or decade the story takes place. Do some research on that era of
the story. Look for how people dressed, how they spoke, what was in trend, and technology.
Familiarize yourself with that time.

Time also includes which season it is. Is it autumn or summer or winter or spring? Take a note of that.
Even knowing the time of the day is crucial. I often cringe when people handle the early morning or
very late-night scene with their normal voice or with energy. This is the time when your body energy is
to the lowest. If you play with a groggy voice and little moody way, the audience will relate to the
scene more effectively.

3. WHERE AM I?
After the question Who Am I?, this is the most important of the Uta Hagen 9 questions because the
setting in which the story takes place affects the character the most. The feel and emotions of the
story come from the world it takes place. I believe the place itself acts as a character in a story.

So, if your story is limited to a city or town or house or forest or jungle or pirate ship or space station or
even the ocean, study it thoroughly.

4. WHAT SURROUNDS ME?

What is happening in the environment surrounding you? What’s the weather? Landscape? People?
Objects? Not just what is exactly around you, but how you handle and react to these things when you
come in contact with them.

5. WHAT ARE THE GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES?

Before going into a scene, you must know three things:
1. What was your previous circumstance?
2. What is your present circumstance?
3. What will your future circumstance will be?

Always enter into a scene with the previous circumstance. For example, if you had a big fight, you were
angry, it must reflect into your current circumstance at the top of the scene. You must still be angry
and upset. And as the scene continues, your circumstance will change as you move towards achieving
your scene’s objective.
 This is necessary because as humans we take time shifting from one emotion to other. Anything bad or
good happening sticks with us for long time and it affects our daily routine. Effects last until another
big event occurs.

So, while working on any script, at the top of the scene write where you are coming from and what was
your mood. If it is a new start or there is a jump in time such as days, months, or years, imagine the
circumstance that might have occurred before the current circumstance your character is facing.

6. WHAT ARE MY RELATIONSHIPS?

When you talk about relationships in terms of acting it doesn’t mean only relationships with other
people, but it also means relationship with objects and events.

Relationships with people is basic thing to learn about any character. But it is also important to learn
what is your relationship with objects or events. Like in the movie Patriots Day, how the Boston
bombing event played a large role in how the character Mark Walberg played behaved. Another
example I think of is The Fastest Indian where Anthony Hopkins shared an emotional relationship with
his high-speed motorcycle.

Yes, the examples I used are those in which an object or event play key role in defining circumstances
the characters face. But, if you look closely every story will have that one object or event the character
will be affected by. You will have to test and try to find which works best. Sometimes object or events
are the biggest trigger for some emotions that you seek during performance.

7. WHAT DO I WANT?
This question has two parts:
1. Scene objective
2. Overall objective

Objective in acting is an important term. It is what your character wants. Your goal.

You take any acting class and you will come across the term objective. No matter which acting system
you follow, everyone speaks heavily about the objective of the character in a story.

Let us look at the two parts:

1. Scene objective: What does your character want in the specific scene you are currently playing? Is
he trying to convince his girlfriend to stay, or is he trying to convince the police he is not the
murderer? Whatever it may be, find that objective.

2. Overall objective: Once you have read the whole script. You must be able to write in one line what
your character wants more than anything. In The Little Mermaid Ariel wants to live in the human
world. In Beauty and the Beast Belle wants adventure in her life. In Aladdin he wants people to see
him as more than a street rat. In The Lion King Simba wants to be king. One thing to keep in mind is
to keep the objective emotional. It could be a romantic relationship, it could be revenge, or winning
someone’s trust back.
8. WHAT IS IN MY WAY?
This question must answer what are the obstacles that your character face? Usually, a story lays out a
series of obstacles during the events of the play. You will have to list out all of the obstacles. The best
way to go about this is to connect them with your objective(s). When you are looking for the scene
objectives, you should also ask what are obstacles that stop your character from achieving that goal.

And if you think, a story is all about characters overcoming their obstacles and achieving their
objectives. In Star Wars Luke Skywalker wants to become a Jedi. What are the obstacles he needs to
overcome to do this? He needs to train with Yoda. He needs to control his fear. He needs to master
using the Force. He needs to defeat Darth Vader in battle. These are just SOME of the many things in
his way to becoming a Jedi. Conflict is the key to all drama. If you find the conflict your character is
facing right here, right now your obstacles become clear.

9. HOW DO I GET WHAT I WANT?

This question is almost summarizing all of Uta Hagen’s 9 questions as it gives an actor an action to do.
The audience wants to see the journey you go on as your character and to reach that step, you will
have to understand the character, the place he or she is in, the circumstances, what he or she must
achieve, and what is stopping him or her form achieving their goal. After comprehending all of that
information, your character will now have a solid action to take. Like if the boyfriend is supposed to
stop his girlfriend from leaving, he must hold her hand, pull her closer to him, and say his lines to
compel the girlfriend to stay with him.

To answer this question, go scene by scene and list the action required for each individual line. You
should be able to summarize each action into one specific verb line by line. Coax. Persuade. Annihilate.
Question. Challenge. Flirt. Intimidate. Scold. Shame. Chastise. Love. Coddle. Mock. Threaten. Nag.
Motivate. Distract. Ignore. Worship. Tease. Surprise. Shove. Demand. Judge. The possibilities go on and
on. Choosing a specific verb that fits with your line(s) will organically extract a physical action out of
you.

So, those are Uta Hagen’s 9 questions that you must answer as part of preparing for any character.
My advice is to use pencil and write everything in your script. Why pencil? Because you can change it
easily. Your first attempt won’t land you with all of the right answers as there is no perfect formula
to making a character, but testing and trying will help you build a believable character to embody.