A Quote by Bryce Dallas Howard
With The Help, I knew folks involved in the project peripherally. I wanted to audition for Hilly Holbrook and part of the initial feedback was: "No, Bryce is too nice." That's part of the reason why I really love auditions as well - you get to try out a character and try out different versions of a character.
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As an actor, you never really set out to be a stand-out character. You just want to do justice to the story and enjoy playing it, and find all the different nooks and crannies of who someone is. For each part that you get, they're all special and you just try to give everything you can to each one. I don't know whether they're going to be stand out in that way or not factors into my work. They all stand out for me.
Gary Ross one of those directors which lets you do what you need to do to become your character - he lets you try to do everything on your own when you're acting. Then at some points he would say, "Let's try this," or "Let's try that." Most of the time he just kind of let me try to just become my character on my own and it worked out really well.
When I was younger, I would go to auditions to have the opportunity to audition, which would mean another chance to get up there and try out my stuff, or try out what I learned and see how it worked with an audience, because where are you gonna get an audience?
Certain roles, I just won't invest in. I'll go in and audition, but I might not spend five hours trying to figure out what the character is really about or go so deep into it. I might just learn the lines and go in and try my best because I know it's not safe for me to love the character or to fall in love with the idea of the role.
A big part of what I wanted to do with this character was go from when I was a boy and try and develop into a man, really try and play him as a man who is on this search, on a journey of personal, spiritual, political, social discovery.
I have a gut reaction to stuff that I read. Either it's a filmmaker that I really want to work with, or it's a story that I really want to be a part of and help serve, or there's a character that I feel I can bring something unique to. That's really what it's about. I would go crazy, if I just relied on the same tricks and did the same thing, all the time. It was just be no fun, at all. I really do need to try something different, every time out, and do something that scares me, a little bit.
I try mainly to just focus on character and what my character's point of view is, with each person, and try to figure out story.
I had to audition for the part of Jnior, and I wanted the role terribly because I knew it was a great character. This guy is a wonderful, funny, mean old guy.
Being a TV actor is quite different from being a movie star, and I always try and highlight my character. It is the reason why I am more inclined to taking frequent sabbaticals: so that when I return, people can identify with the character I play.
I try desperately to try and figure out how they'd react to different scenarios. That's part of what the DM's job is: to try and know their players well enough to where they can build encounters, challenges, and be like, 'I think they would do this in this scenario, so I will go ahead and prepare a few options based on this.'
To me, the struggle is to try to make a less-well-written or less-well-rounded character and find who they are. If you really get it, and it's all on the page, then it's really just gonna pop out at you.
You really try to work the character out and spend time in the headspace of the character. That's what I did.
Back in the day I wanted to be a James Bond girl and I got really close to it too, but I didn't. But now it's just really about enjoying who I work with, the kind of atmosphere that I'm working in, and the character. That's why I think nowadays I tend to really try to be somewhat picky any more to what I do, not just going out to get a job. And sometimes you have to do that, you have to work just to work. But I'm very fortunate to say that I'm actually working at a job that I absolutely love and enjoy and everybody there I enjoy so much and I feel very blessed.
If you know what it is before you even start, it's not as interesting. Central to being an actor is pretending, and the adventure of it all. That's why you become a junkie for different kinds of situations. I try to attach myself to people who really inspire me, and directors who are really passionate. That way, I can give myself more fully and trust the impulse behind why the film is being made, and I can be a little more irresponsible in finding out what the character is. I have to worry less about what the character means if I trust the director.
I try to discover the character's primary motivation. In a screenplay, you can make up a hundred different variables of a character. Is he there for love or respect, or is he there out of fear? What's he doing? Why is he doing it? Then I can build on the intricacies. Does he pick his fingernails? Does he always do this when he's lying? All the little things that come with it. But it's also like, if you're doing a caricature and you're like, "I want to do a blue-collar guy from Jersey," you have to go and do the research on the region, the who, what and why.
Improv is more than just spitting out a bunch of funny stuff that's unrelated to the material. You have to stay in character, you have to react and respond as the character you're trying to play. You have to service the story, and I think improv training has helped with my listening, responding, and my audition technique. It's sounds so silly, but it's true. Because not only do you improvise during the audition, but once you get the part, they'll say, "Throw away everything. Just improv this scene. Do whatever you want." Someone could panic if they're not used to doing something like that.
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