Actors often set out to write a project for themselves upon industry advice as a way to increase exposure and create content that highlights the “roles they want to play” or how they hope the industry will see them for the casting process, but there’s a major problem with this approach. Now, while there’s nothing wrong with writing a vehicle for yourself, that’s very different than writing “yourself” into a script and the difference is consequential.
I can immediately identify an actor-written script where they wrote themselves into the lead role. The reason they’re so identifiable is the same reason why they’re often so ineffective: In these scripts, there’s always a cast of delightful, unique, sharp characters in the world of the story that all revolve around a very dull, straight-forward central protagonist.
No one sets out to write a dull protagonist, but when we base that protagonist upon ourselves, we make two mistakes.
1. We are often incapable or unwilling to look at what makes great characters: their vulnerabilities and flaws.
2. We want to include so much of our complex selves into our 90-page feature that it ends up feeling flat.
So let’s tackle that first problem. We’re in the habit as humans and especially as actors of identifying ourselves positive trait-forward. Essentially, we’ve been taught to pitch ourselves like a dating profile: “I’m smart and funny, I like to read, I love tacos, and my greatest flaw is that sometimes I work a little too hard for the things I’m passionate about.” Unfortunately, this might be a great hire and a good date, but this is not an interesting character to watch.
Great characters require a deep vulnerability that makes them relatable, and that deep vulnerability comes from an inherent flaw in how they see and move through the world. To be able to write that version of ourselves though, we’d have to be willing to uncover the parts of ourselves that we’ve spent a lot of time, especially in this industry, hiding.
A Beginner’s Guide To Writing a ScriptIf you wish to really write a vehicle for yourself, then take some time to think through what doesn’t work about you, what is the least appealing trait of yours, what makes you unlikeable, undateable, and unhireable: “I’m here because my friends and my partner think I’m overly demanding which is bad enough, but then I am also incapable of accepting responsibility for things, and it’s causing problems in my marriage.” Boom, that’s a character I’ll watch and invest in!
So let’s tackle that second problem. Sometimes you have every intention of exposing your vulnerabilities and your flaws in a character. But if your character is still falling flat on the page it’s because you’re doing TOO much.
Unfortunately, when we write a character based on ourselves, we know ourselves so well that we want to include everything but everything is too much for an audience to comprehend or latch on to in a 90-minute journey.
Instead, you should focus on which aspect of yourself is the most useful toward the arc of your story, and let the rest go. Think about celebrities as a great example, we only have an impression of who they are, they are of course more complex, but the impression helps us form an opinion and an opinion means we invest and care.
You’d consider it impossible for someone to really get to know the whole real you on a 90-minute date, so what makes you think an audience will understand the whole real you in a 90-minute film? Instead, if you focus on one aspect, one flaw that you want to explore, you’ll have a character we can form an opinion about and invest in emotionally as you take us on the journey. The last thing you want to have happen when you start writing material as a vehicle for yourself is to have all the accolades and attention go to the other characters in the story.
The solution is simple. Hold a mirror up to your vulnerabilities and flaws, find the one that is the most central to the arc of the story you want to tell and the questions you want to explore, and leave the rest behind for another project. If you follow these simple ideas you’ll not be writing yourself, but a vehicle that will highlight a performance of an exceptionally unique, enticing, intriguing character we can all invest in, and hopefully hire!
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