The essential elements for building a character (any character) How to build a character in drama?

The art of performing is the kind of art that is demonstrated by the human body and/or voice or combined. It comes in all different shapes, such as (voice acting, signing, dancing, acting or mime)

The acting part is what I consider the ultimate journey of self awareness and discovery. Acting is the tool that can bring a human to a level of understanding, acceptance and calmness towards life as a dramatic continuing scenes. As it's often refered to acting as an element for uprising/uplifting a society an actor can be an agent for such a purposes as Alan Rickman once said "Actors are agents of change, a film, a piece of theater, a piece of music or a book can make a difference, it can change the world" 

As the number of actors wannabes is massively increasing (specially in the social media era) where everyone now has a portable studio in their pockets or purses. The need to understand the definition of a 'Good actor ' also arose. 

Is it enough to look nice and have the spirit to stand in front of a group of people and 'talk' or there is more to it than just that? 

A lot of young actors think it's all about being good at lying or show falls emotions on demand. This is partially true, but there is also building the character, analysis the script and find out motivations. An actors role is to push the story forward, the character in that fictional world is there for a reason and it's definitely not because the character looks nice or has 2M followers on Instagram or because the executive producer likes him/her. 

This of it as if you were a house builder or a lumberjack. You will get hired cause you're good at what you're doing not because you look good, imagine a lumberjack who can't left an axe? Actors are character's builders. The better you are the better your character will be! Easier said than done huh? Half of this is truth cause acting is not an easy job but it's fun to those who are passionate about it. I remember when I first started studying/researching acting almost 20 years ago, I'd be so confused, insecure, sometimes even pissed while trying to figure out what to do, but among the journey I'd also be so happy deep inside and I couldn't figure out why. I started to think I must be insane. Well all creative people have to be insane or let me say they have to have that sparklers of insanity to create. 

"So, How can an actor build the character?" 

I can hear you wondering, and let me cut it short here and tell you the essential elements for building a character are; a backstory, a personality, a goal, a role in the story, and a physical description.

A- a backstory: is what you have to do as an actor to figure out what happened in the story before the time of the actual written script. You see to us (creative people) some consider the art work is an ongoing action. The film has a backstory (before filming it) and the actual film and then whatever happens to the story (after credits hit the black screen) so you gotta figure that out through your character. 

B- A personality: if you ever performed try to see yourself in the last two piece of artwork, whether it was theater or film if you don't see some sharp differences between the two roles you played then you need to read in psychology, anthropology and characterization. Your body is your avatar that you use to bring the character to life, the character is not you. If you hate cheating in real life you have to find motivations to do it when you play your next cheater role. 

C- A goal, long story short (a motivation) every character is there in that piece of fiction because they want a specific thing, their motivation makes them stuck to that world until their motivation (goal) is achieved this is when "their role is due" as an actor a clear goal will make it easier and better journey (story) so don't be afraid to ask, a bad question is a question that wasn't asked. 

D- A role in the story, That is the purpose of the character in the story and it's not the motivation. The motivation is related to the character while the role in the story is related to the story. e.g the character you play is husband who lost his wife in a car accident and he is determined to get her insurance policy in full. So his motivation is to fight his case to get that check but the insurance company and the local police deputy strongly believe the wife was killed in a car accident that was set up only to find out the killer was the husband himself, so the role of character of the husband is actually the killer he is the villain the whole time and a good actor can play the character after drawing a clear map of what's the role's goal and what's the role's role in the story!!

E- the Physical appearance; this is two thirds of an actors work. Yet so many actors believe they can do it in the wardrobe! A good actor is a good athlete, gotta be always in shape and gotta be always ready to try something different, something new. A scientific study has proven that every person has a different walk it's almost like figure prints. If all people walked the same only because they shared the same bone structure they wouldn't be human they'd be more of a bunch of robots. A good actor study the character physically; how does it walk? Talk? Laugh? Get board? etc. What clothes they wear and why? Low pitch or high pitch in their voice and why? 

All these combined will draw the physical appearance of the character and the set will be stunt by the great performance of the actor which was made possible only because the actor took the time and put in the needed effort to draw creativity with their body and voice in the space and time.