Step Fourteen: Reading the Script: Screenplay-to-Film Acting Lesson

In first studying how to read lines from a script, I searched available online screenplays and available movies I could watch on my Netfilx account. From that I decided to take a look at a casting that would be similar to my own: a casting like Jennifer Lawrence's [X-Men First Class, The Hunger Games, Winter's Bone]. So i found Winter's Bone, 2010 Best Picture & Best Screenplay Sundance Film Festival.

Before I started watching the movie, I read the the first 25 (of 73) pages of the screenplay and read the part of Ree (Jennifer Lawrence). I tried to read for Ree to see how I would be that character versus how Jennifer Lawrence portrayed her in the movie.

First time I read through the first few pages, there's a simple line that Ree says to her younger sister: "Mornin." I tried reading that several different ways: happy, hyper, sad, indifferent, angry, sisterly... but the truth is that you can't just know the character from one line or how you should say it in that instance. That's where the director comes in. Or, if you don't have the director, make sure you've read the story thoroughly then decide for yourself. Or be who you are and decide that THIS is how you see the character, because it is YOU.

Also, each individual line is not a chance for you to prove yourself, it's a chance to show who you're character is and what she is going through.

Above is page 10 from the screenplay
Below is the trailer for Winter's Bone
(there're a couple lines from this page that are said in the trailer)

That was my first real understanding of how to interpret a script. I realized that you need to have an understanding of the character and what her true actions/emotions would be, given the imaginary circumstances. It is a way of defining the character yourself, and not just imitating someone else (which is one of the ways you get trapped and lose your creative self).

It sounds a lil' complicated, but you can learn quite a bit from this process of reading it for yourself and comparing objectively. Key word: objectively. There's no sense in being critical of yourself. You are learning and therefore making progress no matter how it seems.