Expert: John T. Aney - 10/5/2006

Question
well that is some excellent advice, heres another question i was wondering about. I found htis book at the library about mimes, like how to Mime. Do you think that this could help me with acting at all. such as facial expressions and reacting wise.
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Followup To

Question -
I'm 16 years old and i'm in a school play called arsenic and old lace. I go tthe role of Jonathon Brewster, who happens to be played by boris karloff, a crazy evil guy. The problem my director knows i'm a nice guy and she casted me with the evil part(wich is good because its a great challenge for me.)I can't seem to make my voice sound evil or just like a mad crazy lunatic type voice, i can kind of get it low but it gets a little fake and what not. I was wondering if you had any suggestions. I looked online everywhere but i can't find anything so i thought i'd ask you. Also i need to just get the whole character into evil. I'm more of a joker class clown thing so i'm not used to evil. Any ideas?

Answer -
The big problem is that you are thinking of the character as "evil."  No one, even the worst criminal, thinks they are "evil."  Evil is a quality assigned to a person's activity, not something you should think or sound.

Think, instead, of how this person might think, how they might feel, why they do the things they do.  Don't try to "make yourself evil" - that will always come out as fake.

Look at waht the character does, what he says, how he behaves, why he does things.  Yes, this is a murder mystery, and a comedy, but it should have some sense of real life to it, as well.  Don't worry about finding tricks to sound or act evil.  Just think about how the character, as you understand him, would act and respond.

Good luck!

jta


Answer
No, I don't think a book on mime would help you.  Mime is a very specific art form that involves acting, but it's not really what you are looking for.

You seem to want a bunch of tricks you can use to "be evil."  Facial expressions, voice, etc.  As I said earlier, that isn't what you should be thinking about.  You need to think about the character, what he says, what he does, what he thinks, and don't worry about "appearing" evil.  Imagine yourself as the character, and react how you think the character would react.  That's the only path that will lead to success.

jta