ABSTRACT
Like the best directors and producers, successful actors and actresses must choose from among the many projects available to them. As with the other collaborators, it all begins with the script. Many actors reflect on the theme and the values of the script more than the story and the character. Although every acting role takes some preparation and research, there are roles that are so strenuous and that demand so much training, that the actor might spend months preparing before the film even begins shooting. Mastering accents, doing research, imagining biographies and back stories and physically preparing for the role, all of these represent an attempt to get inside characters and bring them to physical life. The use of personal memory to convey the appropriate emotion in a scene is a tool that most actors find useful.
