If you ask 100 actors what genre they like to play, 99 out of 100 will tell you drama. Ask them why, and they’ll tell you they want their work to matter, to have meaning, to be important, to move people, to change the world, and to win an Oscar…
And it’s no surprise, because drama is one of the two most powerful genres of cinema, the other being comedy. The reason why drama has such cinematic power is not because its stories deal with important issues and meaningful themes. Its power comes from its ability to evoke sympathy from the camera, and therefore from the audience. This is very powerful because “compassion” is one of the two things that can save humanity, the other being “laughter”.
Possessing this power is one of the reasons why the Academy Award goes to the person who gets it. The actor whose characters evoke the camera’s sympathy will not only wield this power, that actor will control their world. Actors can use several cinematic techniques to do this. Here’s one of them:
First, remember that on camera, dramatic characters always feel like they are losing, even when they are fighting to win. The feeling of losing makes them fight even harder. When the camera sees this in an actor’s performance, it feels sympathy for the actor’s character. When the camera feels empathy for the actor’s character, it wants to follow that character to the next scene and then to the end of the story. It roots for that character, supports them, fights for them, and lives or dies by that character’s ultimate success or failure.
So take a scene with two people. You usually ask yourself how your character is affected by the other character during the scene. Don’t stop there. Add this technique to it. Imagine that at the end of the scene, your character is planning to do something drastic to the other character – kill them, kiss them, it doesn’t matter. It’s not that your character is actually going to do the drastic thing, but rather that they would like to, they imagine they could, they really imagine it, just like we do in life. It’s very human.
And then, as you act out the scene, have your character try to talk themselves out of the drastic act. Maybe it’s because your character is feeling guilty, sad, scared, whatever. The important thing is that your character spends the scene trying to talk themselves out of something drastic that he or she is planning to do.
For the camera, seeing this struggle is like seeing your character’s conscience at work. The camera’s ability to see your character’s conscience at work makes the camera feel empathy for your character. It confirms the camera’s faith in humanity. It gives the camera hope. In the camera’s eye, it doesn’t just redeem your character – it redeems the world.