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Day 2 Assignments
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Ian Greenham’s Actor Attractors!
Vision: Completing this program will significantly enhance my screenwriting skills.
Doing this assignment I learned more about building actor attractors into my main characters.
Move: Sisters in Time. Genre: Drama.
Character: Aly Silvers
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for this it? She’s an effective defense attorney, who after recovering from leukemia after a bone marrow transplant from her before-then-unknown twin sister, clears her sister of a murder conviction.
2. What makes this character the most interesting character in your story? She has the most dominant role.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? She has her twin sister’s conviction for murder set aside.
4. How can you introduce this role is a way that could sell it to an actor? She opens with a successful plea for the defense of a client charged with murder.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? She is strong, resilient and compassionate.
6. What subtext can the actor play? She is able to contain her emotions beneath her outer strength.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? With her newly discovered identical twin sister, Nicki Holder.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? Through her everyday decency and strength.
9. What makes this character special and unique? Her decency and strength.
Character: Nicki Holder
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? She’s the sister of the protagonist, imprisoned for a murder she claims she did not commit
2. What makes this character the most interesting character in your story? She suffers wrongful imprisonment for a murder she claims she did not commit.
3. What are the most interesting actions this character takes in the script? She donates bone marrow to save her sister’s life.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? Despite her wrongful imprisonment, her background as a nurse leaves her with the compassion to make regular blood donations.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? She has the strength to remain compassionate despite the injustice that has been done to her.
6. What subtext can the actor play? She is able to override her anger about the wrong that has been done to her.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? With her newly discovered twin sister.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? Through her commitment to helping save her sister’s life.
9. What could make this character special and unique? Her deep compassion.
Character: Jenny Levitt
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? She’s the one who discovers that Aly Silvers and Nicki Holder are identical twin sisters.
2. What makes this character the most interesting character in your story? Despite bureaucratic obstacles, she eventually secures Nicki’s agreement to provide a bone marrow transplant for Aly.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the script? See 2.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? Through her surprising discovery of the relationship between Aly and Nicki.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? Quiet determination to do everything necessary to save a patient’s life.
6. What subtext can the actor play? Persist despite obstacles.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? With the two sisters.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? Through her compassion and determination.
9. What could make this character special and unique? See 8.
[WIM: Module 3, Lesson 2: Roles the Sell Actors – June 19, 2022]
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David Scott Smith’s Actor attractors!
My Vision: I am going to do whatever it takes for me to become a legend in both the filmmaking community and popular movie culture, so much so that audiences will stand in lines around the block to see my movies the way I did for Star Wars, ET and Raiders, and I will be buried with the 5 Academy awards given my work, and a tombstone that reads, “Awesome as fuck!”
What I learned doing this lesson: There’s a lot here that I’m excited about, although I’ll be honest, I see that not much of it has to do with my original plot… I think it would be interesting to do this for Queen Bee as well.
Lead Character Name: Storm
Role: Protagonist
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role?
He’s one of the first smart, cool-headed military black ops that has a transformational journey from fearful rookie to confident master, the one chosen to lead vengeance missions, complete with theatrics, and playing his targets against each other.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie?
Only he knows his full mission, and he can never tell the important people in his life the truth behind any of his actions or whenever he asks them to do something for him. As a result, everything he says has subtext! But when he discovers that “his big mission” is actually only a very small part in some bigger mission run by people he doesn’t even know, his perception of reality is shattered and he struggles to recover.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie?
Saves the life of a teammate, takes vengeance upon those responsible for American deaths, saves his family from a car bomb, breaks into enemy quarters, breaks enemy code, plays enemy agents against each other, role plays with wife, in bed with a beautiful woman, stands up to 5 star generals, gets to overpower and beat up slimy soviet agents.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
His smart moves and quick thinking saves his own life and the life of a teammate.
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
From calm to killing, from patience to rage, from calculative to instinctual. From insecure to confident.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Everything he says distracts from his real mission at all times. There’s a deeper meaning under almost everything he says.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
Pretends to be someone else with his wife. Struggles to be the best father he can be, even though he disappears on missions. Has an empathetic relationship with Queen Bee, helps her find her place in the world. Has admiration for his female boss. Has hatred for the Soviets. Has a cunning instinct for his main Soviet nemesis.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
Through his ability to shape a different story for every person he recruits on his mission – as he talks, he’s searching for their yearnings and their weaknesses so that he can exploit them when he needs to.
9. What makes this character special and unique?
He has an Old Testament sense of justice that comes from being shot by his father when he was a teenager and left for dead – all he had was a hunting knife and a bible. He’s taking an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth out of every bad guy throughout the movie.
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Andrew Kelm’s Actor Attractors
Vision: I am going to do whatever it takes to be a great writer of TV and movies who is sought after by people I respect within the industry and has multiple successful TV series produced.
What I learned doing this assignment is… how to give characters traits that will attract actors.
FATEMONGERS; a psychic with a blind spot for abusive men uses subtle manipulations to murder a sexual predator who seduces her to get to her sons.
Lead Character Name: Daphne
Role: Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? She is constantly subverting expectations; full of contradictions
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? She is in control of every situation except her vulnerability with abusive men
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? She arranges the murder of her partner through subtle manipulations that make it seem she had nothing to do with it.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? She is giving a card reading to a client that shows the whole range of her personality
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? She can be cold or empathetic; angry or easy going; a bully or intense listener; great sense of humor
6. What subtext can the actor play? She was abused as a child and her relationships with men are colored by that.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? She falls in love with a man who is a threat to her sons.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? Pithy, honest and to the point; detached, yet passionate when provoked
9. What could make this character special and unique. She always gets her way; she is on the edge between outrageously off-center and brilliant
Lead Character Name: Roy
Role: Antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? He is always calculating; a charming con artist
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? He has the outrageous goal of seducing his partner’s sons, with the ultimate unconscious goal of getting punished
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? Walking into his own murder.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? He is on the run and has to charm his way to safety
5. What could be this character’s emotional range. Cold, seductive; sometimes reverting to a childish guilt-ridden vulnerability
6. What subtext can the actor play? Abused as a child; wants to abuse others; wants to be punished.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? Falls in love with the woman who will kill him.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? Cold and calculated but able to turn on the charm
9. What could make this character special and unique. He gets away with everything he does — until he doesn’t.
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Rebecca’s Actor Attractors
Vision: My vision for my success from this program is to be the go-to writer for producers looking for incredible scripts for successful movies enjoyed by a vast viewing audience.
What I learned for this assignment is to build on the last assignment by applying the same conventions to the characters in my script. The empowerment worked so well I did the same with all of my main chacters. This template really gets the creative juices flowing.
Title: Ragman’s War
Lead Character Name: Ragman
Role: Protagonist
Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role? He is a flawed hero who acts tough, hates God, yet unintentional in doing the right thing. He vows never to kill again, yet decides to murder Bucholtz to correct and old mistake.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? He is multifacited, unpredictible, yet smart and cunning. Some call him Firedamp (methane, forming an explosive mixture with air in coal mines) you never know when he will erupt or how big the explosion will be.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? Explodes at a boss and chases him around a tree, intimidates those he fears including himself. Suffers moral injury from killing 16 men during the war yet regrets leaving one remain alive. Must fight the compulsion to bash heads and kill when triggered. He throws rocks at targets to wear off angry agression so not to hurt anyone. Loves his wife, sons, and mother, but irritated by most everyone else.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? He is introduced on the battlefield, watches his brother blown up, leaves him a canteen, and vows to kill a few of the sonsabitches, picks off 16 enemy soldiers but lets the officer remain alive.
5. What is this character’s emotional range? Complex. From tender to explosive, detached and cunning, adds humor to biting scarasm, a born stoyteller.
6. What subtext can the actor play? His efforts to control a compulsion to kill when he blows up. When hurt cuts deep he manages to appear indifferent despite the minute movement of his facial muscles. He uses harsh comments to mask emotions and push people away.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? The one with Bucholtz. Both men are haunted by the horrors of war. The relationship with his brothers runs from disagreeable to protective.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented? He can be crusty but polite except when triggered and his language would make a sailor blush. Ragman loves stories and his speech tainted with earthy Russelltonian.
9. What makes this character special and unique? Despite his anger at God and religion, his internal moral compass leads him to make decent decisions. A reluctant hero who masquerades as a mean tough guy.
Lead Character Name: Herman Bucholtz
Role: Antagonist
Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role? He personifies evil, wields a mean whip, a controlled leader until he falls into insanity. He can appear polite, cultured, and educated but instantly turn into a biting snake.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? He knows how to rule by terror and bold action. Wise in searching out weakness and using it to his advantage until he meets the carpenter. Sometimes likes to play with his victims before killing him. Hatred towards his father and love for his dead mistress Mina haunt him.3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? He loses control when he whips the carpenter because the man refuses to fight back. He becomes obcessed with the Ragman’s wife who is a doppleganger for his lost love, Mina. He plays up to Ludie’s young brother to gain information. When the boy confesses a crush on Bucholtz, he orders him destroyed. He rapes Ludie yet delusional that she will love him and bear his child. During a confrontation, he bites off Ragman’s earlobe. Fastidious, avoids getting dirt or blood on his uniform even to the point of getting naked before beating someone to a bloody pulp.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? A younger Bucholtz leads his men through a forest and shocked when he turns around and sees their dead bodies. He begs the shooter to kill him too so he can die with honor. When nothing happens, he puts a pistol to his head but freezes and unable to pull the trigger. A voice from the trees in German, Coward, live with your shame, causes him to collapse into sobs.
5. What is this character’s emotional range? From calm and aloof, to torture before killing, drunken hellucinations, to insanity.
6. What subtext can the actor play? With every encounter, he studies the person, scheming on how to get into their head. He loves using inuendos to push buttons and observe their reactions. He rapes Ludie yet begs for her to love him.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? The one with Ragman and the compulsion to make him suffer the same shame and horror he endured by staying alive. Both were damaged by the war, Ragman returned to a loving family but Bucholtz disowned to fend for himself.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented? Through sarcasm and inuendo to exploit each person’s weakness to control them yet charming when it suits his purpose. His English elecution is percise with a high German accent.
9. What makes this character special and unique? He is a skilled rider and expert with the bullwhip, a monster masquerading as a gentleman. Born to wealth, nobility, and expectations, after his disgrace and breakdown during the war, he is reduced to a common criminal. He chanels the evil powers inherited from his cruel father, the man he hated most, to get to American and track down the soldier who ruined his life. Character Name: Ludie
Role: Triangle Character, Ragman’s Wife
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? How she handles her emotions after the rape like so many women did during that time. Her worry and self louthing after the abortion of the baby that might be fathered by Bucholts. Afterwards, the guilt of killing her own child causes her to cut off her long hair into a butchard chop job, the beginning of her transformation from a beauty into a hag, from cheerful into deep depression. It is a secret she must keep from her husband to keep him alive.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? She is cute and sassy especially when flirting with the husband she adores. She is also protective of her homosexual younger brother. She is practical and can do person.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? She keeps Ragman calm to keep him alive and loves him despite his ptsd. Her bravery in getting the abortion that rendered her unable to have future children.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? In a scene where 13 year old Ludie gives 18 year old super fisherman Ragman a lesson on how to catch a fish.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range. Cheerful, teasing, loving, caring, to the deepest depression.
6. What subtext can the actor play? How she covers for the pain of being beaten and raped by Bucholtz claiming injury from falling downstairs. How she covers for the abortion by pretending she was never pregnant until her mother-in-law suspicions a miscarriage.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? Her love for her husband and friendship with her astute mother-in-law.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? Joking, inuendo, her Polish accented English.
9. What could make this character special and unique? She is unaware of her natural sexual appeal and beauty. Despite all the trauma, she survives and pulls herself out of the depth of darkness. Afterwards, her wit more biting as she voices her observations.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Rebecca Sukle.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by
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Claudia’s Actor Attractors
Vision: To become such an excellent writer that I know every script I write will be well received by the industry, that my scripts will sell and be produced, and I’ll live the life of my dreams. To also become so empowered that fear is to be laughed at, instead I relish and look forward to pitching, meetings and much more.
What I’ve Learned Doing This Assignment:
This assignment helped me flesh out the antagonist much more than I had imagined. I’m seeing him so much more clearly than I did before.
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</div>Lead Character Name: Abby Role: Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
She’s a complicated character who is strong yet vulnerable. She’s dealing with a terrible phobia. She has a strong sense of right and wrong, but will do whatever is necessary to save her father’s business.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
She’s a germaphobe. She’s learned to control her environment and that all pops when her dad has a heart attack. Now she must face her biggest fears on many levels.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Designing online, a studio set up in her apartment. Cleaning the office, and then homes, wearing hazmat suits, doing funny things to clean without getting germs on her. Trying to eat messy food without getting it on her. Getting back on a horse and riding (she fell as a kid). Playing poker with the maids.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
A strong willed, goal oriented germaphobe who will do anything to save her father’s business, including facing her deepest fears.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
From a terrified germaphobe to a conqueror; emotionally vulnerable to strong willed and stubborn. Caring and loving to angry and guarded.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
She is constantly hiding her fear of germs, doing everything she can to appear normal and not have people see this vulnerability. She’d rather have people think she’s a flake or demanding then know that it’s because she’s afraid.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With Aracelli, the head maid. The two butt heads, each feeling they are in charge. Aracelli calls for the maids to strike (call out sick) leaving Abby to clean everything by herself. With Jack, she has a push/pull, attraction/repulsion relationship… he’s trying to help her and she feels he’s trying to “fix” her… but at the same time, she wants to fix his sloppiness.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Through the irony of having a fear of germs and being forced to take over her father’s cleaning business.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
Her determination to overcome her fear to save her father’s business as well as having a relationship with the love of her life, despite him being a complete slob.
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</div>Character Name: Boomer / Randy / Randall
WalkerRole: Antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
He’s a man living a double life. One as Boomer, the childhood best friend of Abby’s brother and boyfriend and Second as the slimy attorney who is trying to steal the cleaning business away from Abby and her family. He’s sly and cunning while appearing to be helpful.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
He’s living a double life. Sly and cunning, loud and boisterous. Appears to be one thing but is something else.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Antagonist could take in the script?
Playing baseball. Watching the Little League kids, he trips a kid on purpose and then helps him up as if the kid was clumsy. Starts a food fight and intentionally makes Jack look much worse, knowing that it will upset Abby.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
A wise-cracking Attorney who pretends to want to help his “friends” but uses his relationships to further himself and his family financially.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
From a wise-cracking jerk to a serious attorney, from feigning compassion to sliminess.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
This character lives a lie. While he does consider the characters his “friends”, he’d do anything to get ahead in his company (owned by his father) and get ahead financially.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With Jack, pretending to want to help he and Abby but in reality, he knows he’s going to screw them over.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Through living a double life, one as the friend of people he’s known since childhood and the other as a ruthless lawyer bent on stealing Abby’s business.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
He is charismatic, bold, and funny, yet ruthless and conniving.
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Veronica Turowski’s Actor Attractors!
My Vision: I want to be a successful writer who writes several scripts a year and sells them to producers who are eager to make my vision a reality by bringing my scripts to completion so everyone can watch my movies on the big screen.
What I learned from doing this assignment is each lead character must have a unique voice to stand out from the other characters to attract actors. I had to change from Protagonist versus Antagonist to a Dramatic Triangle.
Concept: While at a funeral, the deceased appears and tells a professional mourner he was murdered, but when no one believes the mourner, she decides to find and stop the serial killer before he kills his next victim, only to discover she is a ghost and is the mother of the serial killer.
Title: Justice from the Grave
Lead Character Name: Eppsa Kestner
Role: Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? Eppsa is depressed because her husband died and her son ran away. She deals with it by being a professional mourner. In the end, she finds out she is a ghost who was murdered by her serial killer husband. Also, the serial killer she is currently tracking down is her son.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? The people she talks to are ghosts, but she doesn’t know they are ghosts. She is determined to find the serial killer to save her son from becoming a victim.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? Eppsa is a professional mourner. She talks to people who can’t see her. She goes to a psychic who speaks to her. The psychic knows she’s a ghost, but Eppsa is clueless. She kills her serial killer son.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? Eppsa wakes up in an emergency room where her son was being treated for something. She sees a ghost leave a room where the doctors had just rushed in for a code blue. She panics and runs away.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? She is meek and depressed in the beginning, but then becomes determined and more ominous or sinister.
6. What subtext can the actor play? She is a ghost and doesn’t know she is only interacting with ghosts. Thinking she’s alive, she meets with a psychic a couple of times to see if she can talk to her husband and/or find her son. She constantly tries to remember what caused her husband’s death, and her son ran away. She will remember everything by the end of the movie.
7. What are the most interesting relationships this character can have? Eppsa is drawn to Lonnie because he is helping her find the serial killer. She always seems to come close to seeing and talking to Hayden, but they never connect until the end.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? She’s a grieving, motherly person. She is compassionate, but her anger grows as she comes closer to the truth that her husband killed her because he was a serial killer, and now her son is a serial killer.
9. What could make this character special and unique? She’s a ghost but doesn’t know it. When she gets angry, things around her move. It confuses her. Eppsa kills her son, Hayden, for justice.
Lead Character Name: Hyden Kestner
Role: Antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? He is a serial killer who drives an ice cream truck.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? The irony of being a good dad and an ice cream truck driver, but he’s actually a serial killer.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? He kills his victims and makes each one look like they committed suicide.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? He kills Lonnie.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? He is kind and gentle around kids, but ultimately, he is seeking revenge for something his friends did to him as a teen.
6. What subtext can the actor play? He pretends to be a loving, family guy, but he’s a serial killer.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? He is loving to his wife and son. They look like the perfect family. Lonnie was his best friend growing up. Hayden gets revenge on his high school friends for something that happened in school or maybe something they did to him.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? He’s nice on the surface but ruthless when it comes to vengeance.
9. What could make this character special and unique? Everyone loves him. In the end, his own mom kills him.
Lead Character Name: Lonnie Dowic
Role: Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? Lonnie’s an angry ghost who wants to avenge his murder through Eppsa.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? He’s manipulating Eppsa so that Hayden will get caught because if Lonnie tells her she’s a ghost, he’s afraid she might disappear or that she will never be able to rest. He doesn’t have control over his surroundings and can’t move around to different locations the way Eppsa does since she believes she’s alive.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? He knows Eppsa is a ghost but never tells her. He learns to use his anger to move things around him.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? Lonnie’s spirit exits his hospital room where Eppsa sees him for the first time.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? He’s friendly and loves to joke around, but at times he loses his temper out of frustration. He’s controlling towards Eppsa but is out of control since he can’t do anything the way she can.
6. What subtext can the actor play? From the beginning, Lonnie knows Eppsa is a ghost, but he doesn’t tell her. He knows the serial killer is Hayden, but he can’t tell her because then she may not have it in her to stop him.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? Lonnie and Eppsa are ghosts.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? He has to control his anger over being murdered.
9. What could make this character special and unique? Lonnie must find a way to get Eppsa to expose or kill her son, Hayden, even though she’s a ghost, so they can both rest in peace.
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BOB SMITH’S ACTOR ATTRACTORS
My vision for success after this program:
I want to become a great writer who delivers entertaining, informative, and uplifting movie scripts that sell and get produced.
What I learned from doing this assignment is…?
How fun it is to map a way through the script to make characters attract actors.
ACTOR ATTRACTOR #1
MOVIE TITLE: “Angels in Gangland”
LEAD CHARACTER NAME: LOU TASCA (PROTAGONIST)
1. What makes this character the most interesting character in the movie?
He is an aging mob soldier who was passed over for promotion to caporegime and Underboss of the Giordano family. We see this gangster killed but he can’t get on the train to the World to Come unless he follows the directions of his spirit guide, whom he knew in life (Rabbi SOLOMON LEVINSKY) who gives him a mission that will redeem him: He must return to New York’s gangland and convince his slayer (CARLO VIZZINI) to do what he should have done, namely, quit the mob and join the Witness Protection Program. IOW, be a rat, and do good.
2. What makes this character the most-interesting character in the movie?
We see a brief glimpse of his gangster life until it is ended by gunshot by Carlo,
who immediately regrets his action. Then he is a spirit between two worlds, who
then returns to earth and awkwardly haunts his killer with a proposition: I’ll leave
you if you quit the mob and turn state’s evidence in the Witness Protection
Program.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie?
He crashes Carlo’s 30<sup>th</sup> Birthday Party and first tells him to quit the mob, but Carlo’s fearful reaction only brings him into danger that he is insane and his own boss TONY RIZZO may have to kill him because his craziness may draw heat from the cops. He also spirit possesses Carlo, like a dybbuk but to be benign in order to open the way to make Carlo’s choice to quit the mob more easy.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
He is introduced leaving a mob-owned (i.e., TONY RIZZO, owner) strip club
with Carlo who in an alley shoots him, he immediately appears in a dark place
between two world and announces, “My name is Lou Tasca. I was a gangster,
now, I’m dead. This is my story, the movie unfolds..
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
From sorrow, to sarcasm, to desperation, to being a caring person.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
He is stuck in gangster-think even when being tossed gems of wisdom from his Rabbi-spirit guide.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
With his Rabbi-spirit guide who not only guides him in trying to convince Carlo to quit the mob but wants the collateral good of getting his son Sam (Carlo’s friend and fellow wiseguy to also quit the mob. Also, Lou’s relationship with Carlo whom he is trying to get to quit the mob.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
He is determined to get Carlo to quit the mob and starts to appreciate the good.
9. What makes this character special and unique?
Being a spirit of a criminal he has a transformational journey from criminality to beneficent actor through the guidance of Rabbi Solomon.
ACTOR ATTRACTOR #2
MOVIE TITLE: “Angels in Gangland”
LEAD CHARACTER NAME: RABBI SOLOMON LEVINSKY (PROTAGONIST)
1. What makes this character the most interesting character in the movie?
He is the spirit guide of a slain gangster (Lou Tasca) who fascilitates his mission to persuade his slayer (Carlo Vizzini) to leave the mob and enter the Witness Protection Program. Solomon also seeks a collateral good, that if Lou could persuade Carlo to quit the mob, perhaps Solomon’s son and Carlo’s friend fellow weiseguy SAM LEVINSKY to do the same. In other words, he is a sage and a mystic, teamed-up with a Cosa Nostra made man. .
2. What makes this character the most-interesting character in the movie?
He is a Rabbi, sage, and mystic teamed up with a Cosa Nostra made man. .
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie?
He is the first to meet newly-dead Lou Tasca to explain the world between two world in which he is stuck and how he must rectify his life of crime by getting Carlo to quit the mob, and thus gain his entrance into the World to Come. He teaches Lou also the special art of spirit possession in which he can be a benign help to him. He keeps having to correct Lou’s gangster impulses and nurture the malefactor to become a noble mensch and rescue his son from a life of crime as well.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
He is shown in life caring for a dying mob associate and extolling his own Uncle
Max who was in the mob of Meyer Lansky who we see cracking Nazi skulls at
the Nazi Rally at Madison Square Garden (1939) and running guns to the
Haganah in Israel’s War of Independence (1n 1948) – these stories which
Solomon told to Sam, as tales of how a Jewish gangsters protected the Jewish
people but it has the reverse effect of inspiring Sam to join his friend Carlo in
becoming an associate of the Giordano crime family.
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
In contrast to Lou’s mobster coarseness, Solomon is rabbinically gentle but firm. His emotions range from sorrow to prayerful to desperate.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Exasperation with the spirit of slain mobster Lou Tasca.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
With his charge, the spirit of slain mobster Lou Tasca. He is invisible to all other character but he does spy upon them.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
He is determined to make Lou a noble mensch – as hard as it is to do so.
9. What makes this character special and unique?
He is spiritual yet not aloof. An earthy rabbi even as a spirit. He is a Rabbi but also worked as an accountant in the crime-ridden New York Garment District and had an Uncle Max who was in the mob with Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky.
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Tracy’s Actor Attractors for Poldark
I have so much fun discovering what will cause actors to sign onto my movies!
I will do whatever it takes to become a successful author and screenwriter with multiple successful movies produced.
What I learned from doing this assignment is there are NO movies set during the American Revolution that have female lead characters.
Character: Ross Poldark (Poldark, PBS Masterpiece)
1. Tragic character who comes home from war to find his father dead, his estate in ruins, and the woman he thought was his fiancée about to marry his cousin.
2. Instead of fighting for the girl, he congratulates the couple and sets about rebuilding his life, his estate, and his copper mine.
3. He rescues an urchin girl and refuses help from his family.
4. He is introduced in an action scene—an ambush—where he goes from supposed rogue to hero, and the sole survivor.
5. Anger, hurt, depression, resolve, honor, humor, rising above
6. Irony, makes fun of his own situation, not above the law though he has been a soldier
7. His unrequited love for his lost fiancée Elizabeth, his taming of Demelza, his constant bucking of authority, his good relations with his tenants on his estate. He is philosophical and responsible to a fault, yet he can react in anger and make his situation worse.
8. Wry sense of humor balanced with dark, brooding temper.
9. He is a gent, but he doesn’t disparage the poor. He can cross over and be one of them, work alongside them.
10. Having survived an awful ambush, and sporting a disfiguring scar on his face, Ross returns home from the war on the stagecoach. He appears to be asleep. We know it’s him because he’s wearing on his pinky the ring Elizabeth gave him when they parted. The other passengers gossip about him, his father’s death, his ruined fortunes, even his father’s status as the less-favored younger son–a wastrel. When Ross snaps awake and asks if his father is dead, he is calling out the society people who only appear to be “concerned.” He goes to his uncle’s house, as he must “seek welcome there.” The welcome is awful—they are glad to see him, but he is surprised to find Elizabeth among those at the dinner table. He acts as though they are still attached, but then finds out his cousin Francis is about to be married. To whom? Why, Elizabeth. He doesn’t react, just congratulates the couple, asks his uncle to borrow a horse, and rides home, to a desolate and empty farm.
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Bill kellas What I learned is the main characters must have depth and multiple levels of substance.
1 – Actor notoriety – Wants to be known for this part the range of emotions it so vast that it will be a challenge for even the best actor
2 – Character that is most interesting in movie. Troy because his character arch is the most dramatic as he who avoided conflict must now embrace it to save his mother the scientist who taught him.
3 – Takes most interesting actions in the story. The build up to the final cage fight preparing,emotional and stages of internal and external change they both must overcome.
4 – Outstanding Introduction. First day at school they disassembled the football team that were offensive to their sister Amy.
5 – Range of emotions the actor can play. Since Cane and Troy are twins the same actor can play both parts Canes outgoing personality, quick caustic wit physical quickness makes him a natural leader. Troy on the other hand is an introvert as an analyst projects are more interesting than people he is not quick to respond but he has more of a measure twice cut once approach I’ll have to think it over is his phrase that drives Cane crazy. Amy has been genetically altered for subduction she can dance,sing and is beautiful but like her brothers deadly.
6 – Subtext the actor can play. All 3 kids had superior blood lines,inhanced training that they must hide and yet sibling rivalry was alive and well in Cane the flashiest of the three. So 3,5,and 7 are in play as subtext
Scheme and InvestigationLayeringSomeone Hides Who They AreThe Fish Out of WaterSuperior PositionA Major Cover UpCompetitive Agendas
7 – Relationships that are interesting. Troy and Cane are the most interesting they and their sister Amy were trained assassins by the USSR before it broke up. Troy and Amy were biologically enhanced Cane was technically improved. They all were tied into a hive quantum computer communication system that allowed them to sync and anticipate what was going to happen next. That was until the car accident that required blood transfusion and changed Troy’s demonicly superior Titan blood to human blood and he became compassionate for the first time.
8 – Unique Voice expressed through dialogue and action.9 – Something truly special about this character cold on the outside but warm on the inside as you get to know Troy. While Cain is warm on the outside but cold on the inside this is why Molly their love interest chose Troy.
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Jaelle’s Actor attractors for The Unforgivable
My Vision: I’m an award-winning screenwriter that is sought after by people in the industry, who creates scripts that change lives to bring a new vision to the world, and I’m richly rewarded.
What I learned: ya gotta make characters that are incredibly interesting and show it.
Movie Title: The Unforgivable
Lead Character Name: Ruth Slater
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role? Multi-dimensional woman who is strong, yet vulnerable; who has accepted the shooting of a man she didn’t kill to save her sister.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? Most interesting because she’s learned to be tough, yet she’s kind and gentle. She takes risks, learns the hard way, never gives up. Ruth Slater is trying to find her sister. She’s convicted of killing a cop, spent time in prison and survived; son of cop out to get her.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? Stands up against one of the sons of the cop who is going to kill a young woman. Protects young sister. Shows how good she is as a carpenter. Shows cell mates they can’t mess with her. Gets beat up by a fellow worker. Destroys her carpenter work.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
5. What is this character’s emotional range? Cut off, standoff-ish, to soft and loving.
6. What subtext can the actor play? Says she guilty but not why.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? With her sister, the lawyer’s wife, the son of the killed cop, her parole officer.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented? She’s mostly introverted and closed off. Lots of nonverbal clues. Many flashbacks.
9. What makes this character special and unique? She grows from leaving the prison to finding her sister. Audience doesn’t know she’s innocent until the end.
10. Scene dead cop’s son is going to kill the young woman. Slate goes to see her sister for the first time in 20 years, gets a call, goes to save the young woman that he thinks is her sister. Slate shows anger, presence of mind, compassion for the son, and gets the young woman out of harm’s way.
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Jack P’s Actor Attractors for Roman Holiday
MY VISION: I will do whatever it takes to write a script that is recognized by the industry and leads to multiple successful movies.
Movie Title: Roman Holiday
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role?
Joe (Gregory Peck)
This is the iconic rom-com leading man: strong but romantic; ambitious and willing to deceive for his career, but a gentleman in the end; smart and funny; good lines and pratfalls; chase scene; gets to have adventures and fall in love with the leading lady.
Anna (Audrey Hepburn)
A princess goes missing, has an adventure in Rome, and falls in love with a handsome older man.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie?
SEE ABOVE
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie?
Joe
Meets the princess passed out on the street; takes her home to his tiny apartment; follows her through the streets of Rome to trick her into getting photos; Vespa chase; street dance and fight scene; changes his mind in the end and doesn’t write “the story.”
Anna
Escapes from the embassy, passes out on the street; awakes in a strange man’s apartment; goes on a wild lark in Rome; goes to a street dance that ends in a brawl; falls in the water; returns to the embassy to resume her duties.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
Joe
Handsome older man on the skids trying to make some money as a reporter, then meets and falls in love with a beautiful princess.
Anna
Beautiful young princess runs away from her duties, meets a handsome older man and falls in love.
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
Joe
From shallow and devious to a romantic gentleman.
Anna
From dutiful princess to wild young woman on an adventure and falling in love with a commoner, older man.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Joe
Surface: Ambitious and ruthless “anything to get the story” – subtext: an honest man willing to crush the story for love and honor; surface: could take advantage of the girl’s vulnerability – subtext: is a gentleman and doesn’t touch her.
Anna
Surface: Dutiful princess; subtext: vibrant young lady who wants to let her hair down and do all the things she really wanted to do.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
Joe
With the princess; with Irving; with the editor.
Anna: with Joe; with Irving; with her staff.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
Joe
Struggling reporter intent on getting the story and the buck, to a romantic and vulnerable gentleman in love.
Anna
Uptight formal then to adventurous lady wanting to experience life.
9. What makes this character special and unique?
Joe
Combination of good looks, intelligence, subtle humor, ability to play pitfalls and action comedy, and a tearful romantic who is a good sport in the end.
Anna
Young, beautiful, smart, adventurous, able to return to her real life after tasting a life she is not destined for.
10. (Fill in a scene that shows the character fulfilling much of the Actor Attractor model.)
The scene where Joe and Anna are at the street dance, and the secret police try and take Anna away, and they cause a riot and escape.
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Zeke’s Actor Attractors:
VISION FOR SUCCESS: I will deliver delicious, surprising, seemingly effortless work, that is constantly in demand and causes people to recommend me for original and rewrite projects without hesitation.
WHAT I LEARNED FROM DOING THIS ASSIGNMENT IS thinking about actor attractor main characters is just good writing. Good business is good writing. Good writing is good business.
TITLE: Cousin Mitch
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
MITCH: He’s a genius with a complicated and combustive pessimistic energy.
NEW MITCH: He’s a popular, narcissistic, pansexual magician, worshipped by all the girls and a disproportionate number of guys at the school.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
MITCH: He has the most vivid and emotional experience, starting on page 1.
NEW MITCH: He is a wildly talented, nice, guy… And a complete narcissist. And a sex symbol.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
MITCH: He INVENTS TIME TRAVEL! He builds a time machine! He poops on a girl. He does a fantastic magic trick. He has a panic attack. He gets the girl.
NEW MITCH: He does brilliant and hysterical magic. He makes out with everyone. He’s focused. He’s nice. He’s optimistic.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
MITCH: It’s the first day of high school and Mitch’s magic trick goes wrong. He has a panic attack. He poops on SOPHIE. He ruins high school.
NEW MITCH: New Mitch is an adonis… And naked he does the Marx Bros/I Love Lucy/Big Business mirror scene with Mitch.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
MITCH: From petulant, pessimistic, cynic to optimistic, lovable, optimist. Shits. Tears. Panic. Anger. Elation. Disappointment.
NEW MITCH: Incredible positive and excited. Romantic. Fast talking. Charming. Deep sadness.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
MITCH: He has all of the baggage from his old life that the people in the new world don’t know about!
NEW MITCH: New Mitch knows that Mitch is the old him.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
MITCH: CENTRAL: with New Mitch. SUBPLOTS: SOPHIE, SIMON, ROBBIE, MOM, DAD / NEW SOPHIE, NEW SIMON, NEW ROBBIE, NEW MOM, NEW DAD
NEW MITCH: CENTRAL: Mitch SUBPLOTS: NEW SOPHIE, NEW SIMON, NEW ROBBIE, NEW MOM, NEW DAD
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
MITCH: Brilliant at everything, this includes linguistic dexterity, that he is presently focused on the foulest, most pessimistic view of life.
NEW MITCH: Brilliant at everything, this includes linguistic dexterity that makes him a worthy companion for Mitch.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
MITCH: Time travel and magic and linguistic dexterity.
NEW MITCH: Magic, charm, hotness, and linguistic dexterity.
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Eclipse Neilson – Actor attractors!
LUNEA THUNDER( protagonist1)
VISION:
I want to be a great award-winning writer, known for my genre, who creates the most beautiful films that inspire others to feel deeply, pause, and ponder ways to make the world a better place.
“What I learned from doing this assignment is that I am getting the essence of the lead characters, making them attractive to actors who want a wide range of emotions. I find myself changing some of the structure’s story as I go along. It is like solving a puzzle- one character at a time.
1.What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Lunea is a witchy healer with a powerful priestess presence. She dares to break the boundaries of society believing she holds a sacred truth that must be delivered and yet knows it will break her heart to follow her mission.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
She was sent by the Council of the Universe on a mission; is a wounded healer who stands in the depth of her heart and fearlessly becomes a seeker of truth using all her historical and psychic knowledge to find the sacred answers lost in time.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Uses her Priestess powers to time travel. Is being guided by the variety of spirits of the Council of the Universe. Does everything he can to help her Soul sister – a nun, Sister Anne who is destined to become a saint and at the same time is a caring mother trying to raise a daughter to become a powerful young woman.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Lunea Thunder is a powerful character determined to empower women and help fight discrimination in these times through her actions, words, and expression of deep feelings while being guided by the Council of the Universe.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
Full range – fearless/fearful, empathetic/ enraged, leader qualities/ playful, deep emotions – passionate, and calmly wise/motherly.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
She knows someone’s heart is going to break in the end of her destined mission and struggles to find a different ending. She must feel all the painful lifetimes before so as to find her courage and commitment to help humanity. She hides her deep grief of never feeling she belongs and must learn to receive and trust vulnerable love, especially from Sister Anne.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
Her closest bond is with Sister Anne, whose love for Jesus is destined to intertwine reverently with Luna’s love for the Goddess. Together they become a healing force to fight the hatred that is emerging within the townspeople.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Fierce yet compassionate, committed to integrity, and brilliantly discovering the interconnections of sacred truths between waring religions.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
She is a Priestess / Witch but has a saintly quality to her.
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SISTER ANNE (protagonist 2)
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Sister Anne is an emerging in her power nun dedicated to her love for Jesus who must fulfill her destiny to become a saint.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
She was sent by the Council of the Universe on a mission. She is gentle, kind, deeply wounded from her abusive childhood, and must step out of her comfort zone and break a few rules of her church to take on her power as a leader.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Seek help from her Soul Sister- a priestess witch who has psychic skills and tools to time travel with her to find her courage and purpose.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
A gentle wounded woman healing from her childhood into her powerful self to fulfill her destiny to become a saint.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
Suppressed feelings, loving, empathetic, gentle, fearful, and obedient . She must discover playfulness, trust and a passion for life.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
She secretly has always wanted to be a rebel. Has fallen in love and must struggle with her profound feelings for Lunea. Accepts her journey to become a saint.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
Sister Anne’s relationship with Lunea Thunder the town’s Witchy priestess who will force her to dare to be different and dare to become a leader in her parish.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Her gentle yet powerful passion for the Bible – especially Jesus’s teachings leads her to find courage to speak her truth .
9. What could make this character special and unique?
A humble withdrawn nun destined to become a saint leads a close-minded parish to help return the Goddess of their ancestors to the heart of humanity.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Eclipse Neilson.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by
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Jeffrey Alan Chase’s Actor attractors!
My vision: I will do whatever it takes to become the best screenwriter I can be – an “A” list writer who is praised for high concept ideas, great execution, a string of successful movies and is always ready to share his knowledge and do what he can to help a writer on the way up.
What I learned from doing this assignment is: How important it is to dig into the reasons any actor would want to play any role in my film. The role must capture their interest, passion, imagination, and give them a real clear vision of how the role will advance their career.
Title: Shards
Logline: A woman with no childhood memory is involved in a cat and mouse game with a cunning hypnotist, not knowing the man is responsible for both her amnesia and the death of her treasure hunter father.Lead Character Name: Sarah, 26
Role: Protagonist / amnesia victim1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? This woman is consumed with fixing and putting other people’s art objects back together because she’s afraid to confront her own memories, fix what she can and put herself back together.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? She must argue and plead with her six-year-old self (via hypnosis) and has running battle to help her remember what happened to her as a child.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? Realize that she must go out into the desert and revisit the scene of the crime to possibly trigger her memories to return.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? On the outside she is a woman in control but on the inside is deathly afraid of what she may have done in her past.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? From shy and reserved to friendly and in total command to frightened, then to dread, then to pure terror, back to relieved and cool as a cucumber, and then back to afraid to…
6. What subtext can the actor play? She clearly voices what she wants but then take actions to show what she really wants. We wonder if she is playing March trying to get into his head or if he is playing her.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? With young Sarah and March. She argues and fights with her younger self, not willing to believe that a kid knows more about her than she does.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? Through her combative interactions with March and tortured interactions with her younger self.
9. What could make this character special and unique? She is afraid to completely know about who she is and we feel sympathy. She is so good fixing other people’s artwork but so bad at fixing herself.Lead Character Name: James March, 50
Role: Antagonist / Hypnotist1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? It is a combination of two roles, the same character but 20 years apart. Each persona, character, traits and actions are very different, but the character is the same man – he created his newer version to move ahead in life after a traumatic injury.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? He is sympathetic but at the same time viciously schemes to learn the location and take possession of a treasure he rightly feels is his and that he deserves.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? Early on, March uses his mechanical arm to defend Sarah from a mugger. But he seems to enjoy the violence. Near the end with his real identity is revealed, he reverts to his true self and becomes a vicious psychopath killer.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? A cool-as-a-cucumber best-selling author who uses charisma to charm Sarah into his web.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? From calm to over the top angry. From totally in control to a blubbering mess.
6. What subtext can the actor play? From the beginning he knows he’s going to pry secrets from Sarah’s mind and use her to lead him to the treasure, but all his actions will be of someone who is kind, understanding and helpful.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? With Sarah he must always be on guard that she won’t suspect he is manipulating her for his personal gain.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? He was a know-it-all in the past and is the same way now. He need to sound important will eventually bring him down.
9. What could make this character special and unique? He has a shaved head and wears white suits, giving him the look of a distinguished Mr. Clean and… he has a bio-mechanical left arm with a black, “Corinthian leather” gloved hand.Lead Character Name: Sarah
Role: Protagonist at age 61. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? It is a breakout role for a young girl actress who can play a precocious 6-year-old.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? Young Sarah is gutsy, wise, suspicious and always headstrong. No one can tell her, “no”.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? She has fun kicking an unearthed Indian skull around like a soccer ball. She tries to put pieces of an Indian pot back together, imitating her grave-robber father.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? She has the opening scene where she runs from a man through the desert at night and gets caught, fights but is thrown from a cliff to her supposed death.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? From spunky to fearful, from in control to confused, from giggling happy to tearful sad.
6. What subtext can the actor play? Young Sarah says she will obey her father but takes actions to disobey him. She has a secret agenda to do what she wants at any cost.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? With older Sarah who she is initially afraid and/or disgusted with but by the end of the film is urging Sarah to find her way.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? Through the contrast of what she says she will do with what she does. Also, her dislike for March (as she knows him at that time), something she relays to older Sarah.
9. What could make this character special and unique? She is the driving force for older Sarah to regain her memory and finally be free of guilt. -
Pat Fitzgerald’s Actor Attractors
I have the courage and conviction to create contest winning screenplay and will go on to have them optioned and produced.
What I Learned: Letting go of perfection allowed me to have an open mind about my characters. What I found out about them isn’t written in stone, and that they can and will continue to grow and change as I learn more about theim.
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Jaki Sue: She’s a stubborn woman who insists she can solve all the problems that surround her, but she’s scared to look deep into her own heart to admit she’s lonely and scared.
Judee: The fun-loving party, albeit aging party gal, who always takes the time to help others. She finally finds her true life’s calling at a time when most people consider retiring and gives up her larcenous activities.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
Jaki Sue: When she finally lets her guard down, she realizes all she wanted all along is to love and be loved.
Judee: She’s fearless, a pick pocket and small-time con artist, ‘cause a gal’s gotta do, and what she has to do to make ends meet. But she’ll give what she has in a heartbeat to someone less fortunate.
What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Jaki Sue: She won’t quit her strip act, even when caregivers try to physically remove her from the assisted living home. She helps the man she love escape the assisted living home that he hates.
Judee: She shoplifts, then gives her bounty to others, initiates strip classes in an assisted living home. She takes time to help assisted living residents when caregivers are overburdened. She returns to school to get a caregiving certificate.
How can you introduce this role in a way that can sell it to an actor?
Jaki Sue: In her home, surrounded by bills, on the phone arguing with the head of the assisted living home – who happens to be her daughter – where her mother resides, insisting she already sent in that month’s payment.
Judee: While walking with her son and grandson, she stops to do some pole dancing moves on a flag pole. She removes items she shoplifted from her grandson’s diaper.
What could be this character’s emotional range?
Jaki Sue: Stoic, stubborn, outwardly unfeeling to frightened and learning she can accept and give love.
Judee: Party girl who seemingly lives life on the surface accepting the the side of her who loves caring for others can actually be a way to make a legit living.
What subtext can the character play?
Jaki Sue: Acts like she’s only out for the money but really wishes she could be loved and give love.
Judee: Regrets not going to school to learn a trade.
What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
Jaki Sue: Loyal to her bff, Judee. In perpetual conflict with her daughter. Falls in love with an assisted living resident and doesn’t care what special needs he may have or will need in the future.
Judee: Loves her bff, Jaki Sue, but gets tired of her bossiness. Becomes friends and a volunteer caretaker to women in an assisted living home.
How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Jaki Sue: She’s straight-backed, straight forward, in your face, but she turns nervous once she realizes she might be capable of falling in love.
Judee: She’s silly, an instant friend, has a loving heart.
What could make this character special and unique?
Jaki Sue: She recognizes that doing a raunchy act in assisted living homes will be controversial, but that the residents come to life when they see it, and nothing will stop her from performing. She steps off an emotional cliff by allowing herself to fall in love.
Judee: Once she realizes that she needs to put her larcenous ways behind her, she realizes that she’s never too old to learn and enrolls in a technical school to get a caregiver certificate.
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Claire’s Actor attractors!
MY VISION:
I have a fabulous career as a screenwriter working in both TV and film, and I have tremendous creative, financial, and personal success. I specialize in female driven projects, and I am the go-to-girl for writing lesbian stories.
What I learned: Just do the exercises as best I can. I don’t know everything about my characters yet, but the exercises help me chip away what is not my characters and help me see who my characters are. I just need to show up every day and take one step at a time.
Concept 1 – HORROR STORY
Lead Character Name: Maeve
Role: Protagonist
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Goes from a timid woman to a total badass. She destroys a ghost who has possessed three other women and caused them to kill their own wives. It possesses her and she exorcises it while it is inside her. She’s a badass horror hero. She rescues herself and her wife.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
She’s a psychic and she realizes right from the beginning that there is something wrong. She senses a dark energy at the location. She is smarter than everyone else. She is the only one with psychic powers. She is the one who outwits and overcomes the ghost.
What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
She communicates with the dead. She tries to stop a possessed women from murdering her wife. She uncovers the truth about the ghost and figures out how to get rid of it. While she is possessed she exorcises a ghost from inside her.
How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
See her at the movie experiencing the dark energy. We don’t know. Is she crazy or experiencing something that exists? Or both?
What could be this character’s emotional range
Timid in the beginning, does not want to rock the boat. But gradually becomes more assertive as the threat of the ghost increases. Then she confronts her wife and takes charge and becomes a total badass who destroys the ghost
What subtext can the actor play?
Initially she does not want to rock the boat and hides what she is feeling and experiencing. She hides herself, her true self.
What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With the ghost. She is at first frightened of it. And then battles it and loses. And then finds the strength to defeat it.
With her wife. They are stuck in a pattern of Sybil being dominant and Maeve timid. In the beginning they play out this pattern. But as the story moves on and the situation becomes more and more dangerous, Maeve breaks out of that pattern.
How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
She can see through people. She knows what they are really feeling and thinking.
What could make this character special and unique?
The only psychic in a story about being possessed by a ghost. She exorcises a ghost while it is inside her.
Lead Character Name: Sybil
Role: Antagonist
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
She’s a larger than life character with a big ego. She is a creative genius, and award-winning director and actress. She dominates the conversations and scenes.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
Her commitment to telling the true story of why a lesbian murdered her psychiatrist
What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
In the movie, portraying a psychiatrist who tortures her patients, so torturing her patients. Then she is possessed, and she tries to kill her wife. She goes completely insane.
How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
She portrays a character in the movie and she is an evil psychiatrist who is torturing her patient, and the patient kills her.
What could be this character’s emotional range
From controlling and domineering, to terrified and helpless, needing to be rescued.
What subtext can the actor play?
With Maeve, acting as if she is concerned about Maeve’s welfare when she wants to control Maeve. In front of the others, acting like she and Maeve have a good relationship and she is NOT a domineering bitch.
What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With Maeve. They have a complicated relationship that has a power struggle at it’s core, but they also love each other. Both the power conflict and the love can show up at the same time.
How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Through her role as the director, she gets to tell people what to do. She exposes who she is in this role.
What could make this character special and unique?
As a director, she tells a compelling story. As an actress, she portrays the villain, the evil psychiatrist, in her movie. Then outside of the movie, she is possessed by the real ghost of the evil psychiatrist.
Concept 2 – THRILLER STORY
Lead Character Name: Eve
Role: Protagonist
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Lesbian thriller hero who outwits everyone and rescues her kidnapped girlfriend
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
She struggles to commit to the woman she loves, but then does commit; she goes all out to save her girlfriend, even risking her freedom and even her life; she outwits the FBI and the kidnappers who hold her girlfriend; She has serious issues from early life that come back to haunt her.
What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Escaping from the FBI; facing her father who terrorized her as a teenager and forced her into conversion therapy; rescuing her girlfriend from kidnappers; fighting off someone who tries to attack her girlfriend.
How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Show her and her girlfriend together on a date and in love. But someone is watching them, filming them. Why? And then someone tries to attack her girlfriend and she defends and protects her.
What could be this character’s emotional range
Emotionally shut down, to terrified for herself and her girlfriend, to courageously facing her fears to save her girlfriend, to being open and loving and committing to her girlfriend.
What subtext can the actor play?
She hides her feelings with her girlfriend, Debbie, in the beginning and she does not tell Debbie she is a CIA agent; she is not upfront with Debbie’s parents about the nature of their relationship when Debbie first goes missing; She withholds information from the FBI and police even as she asked them for help finding Debbie.
What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With Debbie. She clearly loves her and puts her life on the line for her, but she is not honest.
With her life; her father – he abused her as a teen and she ran away from him. He is still overbearing, yet she faces him and does not run away. They banter like equals.
How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Her actions, she demonstrates her love for Debbie when she escapes from FBI custody and rescues Debbie; her hesitancy demonstrates the emotional difficulty she has expressing herself and her feelings, yet she does express herself. Her ability to stand up to people, especially her father.
What could make this character special and unique?
Lesbian thriller hero; survived forced conversion therapy;
Lead Character Name: Patty
Role: Antagonist
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
A mother who arranged for her daughter to be kidnapped and forced into heterosexual conversion therapy
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
She is a fantastic liar! She acts like the poor widow, mother of the kidnapped young woman pleading for her safe return, when all along she is the one who arranged for her to be kidnapped to force her into conversion therapy
What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Goes on TV and pleads for her daughter’s safe return; talks to the FBI as if she doesn’t know very much but is cleverly giving them information to frame Eve; uses the FBI as stooges to set up Eve for the kidnapping and leave no room for them to believe she kidnapped her daughter.
How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
She is on TV pleading for the safe return of her daughter. Meanwhile, she is the one who arranged for her to be kidnapped.
What could be this character’s emotional range
From sobbing mother of a kidnapped young woman to steely cold-blooded woman who would kidnap her own daughter, subject her to forced conversion therapy, and then frame someone else for the kidnapping.
What subtext can the actor play?
She lies at every turn. She tells the FBI she knows nothing about the kidnapping when she arranged for her daughter to be kidnapped. She acts as if she is heartbroken when in fact she was angry at her daughter for being in a relationship with a woman; she lies to the FBI and frames Eve for the kidnapping.
What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With the FBI agent in charge of the case that she leads around like a show pony; with Eve, who she despises and blames for her daughter’s demise, but acts as if she is concerned about Eve; with her son that she tries to control when he won’t lie to the FBI.
How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Through her remarkable ability to lie, to pretend to be one person when she is another.
What could make this character special and unique?
Her incredible ability to lie and change who she is. Also, a woman who would arrange to have her own daughter kidnapped and forced into conversion therapy. That is unique!
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Erik’s Actor Attractors
My vision is to achieve true excellence as a screenwriter which causes me to be a consistently working writer, with actual movies made from some of my scripts, and to become wealthy as a screenwriter, develop relationships in the movie industry where I am recognized as a truly original writer, and to become indispensable in the market in which I want to write.
What I learned doing this assignment… Filling in these actor attractors helped add depth to both the characters and the characters’ relationships. Also, my initial answers feel good as a guide, but I know I should not be rigid about them once the writing starts.
Lead Character Name: MARA
Role: Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
The emotional range combined with the variety of actions the character takes and fun and challenging situations she is in. Also unique voice and growth.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
Special skills and traits which are brought out in the most challenging of situations. Also her relationship with the other lead.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Using her excellent sense of direction to navigate and explore her huge and challenging environment; attempt to brave the city streets all by herself for a while; making friends with a down-and-out subterranean dweller.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
By showing her in a unique situation that immediately propels her into her journey and using her most interesting traits in that situation.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
Overwhelmed to proud of herself, afraid to thrilled to loving.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
?
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With her fellow orphan and co-protagonist Penny where she is first in a sort of subordinate role and then one as equal partner and loving friend; and with the mall employee whom she and Penny believe is their ideal candidate to adopt them.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Through the gradual development of her independent personality in a hard situation, her special skill, and how she adapts.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
Her special skill (excellent sense of direction) and the way she evolves in her hard situation.
Lead Character Name: PENNY
Role: Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
The character takes the most interesting actions in the movie; variety of fun and challenging situations; most satisfying character arc.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
Her attitude and viewpoint in an extraordinary situation and how she takes charge of her journey.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Ordering dinner in a fancy restaurant (she is 8); acting as surrogate daughter to the lady who takes her in; seeking out parents in a shopping mall; sneaking into a home furnishing store to sleep in, then escaping in time the next morning; going all-out in a candy store and getting sick from eating too much.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Showing her obliviously starting a fire in the orphanage kitchen, which becomes the reason for her escape, then turning her escape into a journey of taking charge of her own destiny.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
Sure to unsure to defiant to proud to deflated to elated.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
She thinks she wants parents, then thinks she doesn’t need parents
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With her fellow orphan Mara, toward whom she acts as leader and partner in their survival adventure; with a rich, boozing lady who takes her into her home for a while; with the mall employee whom she and Mara believe is their ideal candidate to adopt them.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Mainly in the way she takes command of her situation; her maturity for her age and her outlook.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
Sophisticated self-assurance for an eight-year-old; a sense of outlook or worldview; seemingly fearless; always eating or hungry; take-charge sense of destiny.
Lead Character Name: SARAH
Role: Triangle character
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
?
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
First she fails to go after what she wants because of her partner and then decides to pursue her own desire as a result of her interaction with Penny and Mara, even if it means letting go of her partner.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
She tries her hardest to talk the orphanage “head mistress” into relaxing the rules for adoption; goes on an elaborate search for Penny and Mara in the vast mall; how she responds to her fiance’s wishes.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
By bringing out her predominant subtext in an initial situation which foreshadows her relationship with Penny and Mara….
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
Wistful to indecisive to decisive to surrendering to depressed to joyful.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
She wants to break free from the wishes and influence of her fiancé while also loving him; wants to be a mother; deep down feels that she wants to be the mother of Penny and Mara.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With Penny and Mara and her fiancé. The first, relating to the subtext above as well as her actions on behalf of Penny & Mara, and the second also relating to the subtext above and the decisions she makes in regard to her relationship.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
?
9. What could make this character special and unique?
?
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KRISTIN’S ACTOR ATTRACTORS!
VISION: “I want the personal, professional, and financial freedom and joy that come from writing so well that I’m in demand, selling beyond my wildest dreams, and making worthy projects—on a big scale and with my active, collegial participation.”
WHAT I LEARNED from this assignment: I feel as if my answers might be a little rocky, but I learned that I actually “know” the answers. I always have a fear that I’m not going deep enough in the right places, but this helped me know I’m okay. This exercise also helped me decide who my main antagonist is (I have 2 to choose from).
ACTOR ATTRACTORS — PROTAGONIST (paleontologist)
Lead Character Name: Pete
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role? He’s on a hero’s journey—he’s the underdog who takes hold of his life. He’s honorable, vulnerable, and brave. He’s also one of the most controversial people ever in his field, and the subject of a legal case that garnered worldwide attention. It’s <i style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>Jurassic Park meets <i style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>My Cousin Vinny.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? He’s faced with huge decisions, and also he’s in a very interesting context. He’s an expert in one of the most unusual jobs in the world—but he’s oblivious to human relationships. He goes through a great change, and faces his demons. Also, he avoids confrontation in his day-to-day life, and is a pushover in some situations—and then is faced with a huge dilemma: to give in or fight the government.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? Sues the federal government; is willing to reveal anything about his work or life “for the cause”; won’t “split the baby” (re: breaks the rules to help pack the dinosaur that’s being seized, so she will be protected); takes the defense process into his own hands; joins forces with the most wild lawyer (doesn’t take the easy road); makes bold decisions about the case; faces the consequences with good humor and positivity; is willing to lose everything “to do the right thing.”
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? He’s the pied piper of a ragtag group, but “upping the ante” by explaining detailed scientific information to them, way above their knowledge base. He’s in two worlds at once, fully at home in the rural Midwest, completely unaware that he’s a total geek—and then he leaves behind a kid at the gas station. Yes, he does go pick him up, but it’s clear that his awareness of every detail of his field is much more developed than his basic awareness of parenting. Or humans.
5. What is this character’s emotional range? Funny, witty, goofy…and then righteously angry, incredibly hurt, and sad when he realizes how misunderstood he is. Vulnerable with a few people close to him, and putty in the hands of his kids.
6. What subtext can the actor play? As he fights the “good fight” on the world stage, underneath he is devastated to lose the support of some of his family. His choices are misunderstood; his “way” is misunderstood, and he must soldier on. Also, he just wants to be loved, and he fumbles his relationships with women; he’s great with fossils.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? His kinship with the flamboyant lawyer (his total opposite); his relationship with the fossil (the most intimate of his life); and his battle with the Opposition lawyer. (Note: trying to decide if the judge or the lawyer is the primary in the antagonist camp; they are both bad and both have different parts to play in the saga.)
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented? By doing “good” for people while seemingly not interested in them; by speaking through science (science is his safety net).
9. What makes this character special and unique? He is the charismatic leader of his group—project-wise, but because of his oblivious nature, opens himself to criticism. He doesn’t know how to <i style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>manage people, and never wants to argue—but he wants to be right.
ACTOR ATTRACTORS — SIDE-KICK (defense attorney)
Lead Character Name: Bronc
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role? He’s flamboyant, the smartest person in the room, cocky, and arrogant. All of this leads to daring exploits that bite him in the ass. But mostly, they work.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? He’s willing to go head-to-head with anyone brave enough to come up against him. He vacillates from being insensitive and rude to amazingly present. He also has a great habit of summarizing complex situations into very simple, irresistible arguments.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? Guides the Protagonist through absolutely uncharted waters—and becomes like a brother to him at the same time. Sometimes he gives great advice. Other times…he bites off more than he can chew, or over-estimates his charms.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? It’s the first of the scary moments for the Protagonist—during the seizure. It’s total chaos, and Bronc arrives like a knight in shining armor, blasting everyone out of the way, soothing fears, and making us think that everything just might be okay.
5. What is this character’s emotional range? He’s loud and charismatic, quiet and charming, earnest, unsure. He laughs (mostly at his own jokes), cries, and is totally committed.
6. What subtext can the actor play? He’s totally committed to his clients, so much so that he almost stops sleeping so he can cram as much information as possible into his very smart brain. Sometimes his actual commitment gets fogged by arrogance; sometimes his decisions are confused by self-promotion. Let’s face it; he’s a narcissist, which makes “service” a conundrum.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? He matches wits (and wins) against the prosecution; he merges with his client; he competes with his co-defending “team.”
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented? There’s no one like him. He’s got a little of Ulysses Everett McGill in <i style=”font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit;”>Oh, Brother, but with a lot more ammo.
9. What makes this character special and unique? Almost too much, but someone you definitely want on your side. Saying yes to hiring him is not the safe route.
ACTOR ATTRACTORS — ANTAGONIST (government lawyer)
Lead Character Name: Slick Willy
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role? He is conniving and intelligent, but conflicted. His main goal is to get promoted, and he’s picking low-hanging fruit with this action (seizing the fossil). He is unprepared at the public outcry and has to think fast to keep on task—the task being to take down a very beloved person in a small community, who he has made into a martyr.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? He’s the driver of the action that everyone keeps asking, “why did he do that?” He’s the sharp end of the stick through which we learn everything about the story.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? Seizes the fossil; dolls himself up whenever he might be interviewed; colludes with the judge; agrees to settle, then leaks the settlement (which makes the judge reject it); lies to the press; does the opposite of what he promised to the public; is secretly insecure and outwardly unapologetic (like Trump!).
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? Orchestrating the seizure of the world’s most famous T. rex, he makes elaborate plans—for himself, such as wearing pancake makeup for the cameras—but neglects even the most basic provisions for the task at hand—doesn’t bring crates, or plaster, or wood to make crates.
5. What is this character’s emotional range? In public, he’s a one-trick pony; behind closed doors, he rages, is petulant, intimidated, scared, and begs.
6. What subtext can the actor play? He’s a bully with zero self-esteem; he wants to “get ahead,” but pretends he’s helping the public.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? His main battle “in the ring” is with the flamboyant defense lawyer; he also relies on other lawyers in his office. He also has to face the protagonist, and manipulate the judge.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented? He’s the guy with the connections in government circles. His bravado and “believe me, I know what’s happening behind the scenes” innuendos cover his hidden insecurities.
9. What makes this character special and unique? He’s smart, which helps his goal—but he’s relying on bluster and supposition to make his case. He doesn’t know what he’s up against.
ACTOR ATTRACTORS — PROTAGONIST LOVE INTEREST
Lead Character Name: Kelly
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role? She’s in a pickle. She arrives as a friend of the underdogs—to research them for a story—and falls in love with her subject. But she doesn’t play the wimp. She keeps reporting and investigating, while also supporting the team. She’s no pushover; she’s not just “the girlfriend.” She uncovers important information and keeps Bronc in line.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? She’s the only one both Pete (protagonist) and Bronc (defense attorney) eventually can trust to see the whole picture. She also has one foot in and one foot out, having lived there and then moved away for the big city. She’s neither fish nor fowl, and people don’t know what her motivations are.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? She changes her life in a matter of weeks, moving back from LA to live in rural America; she puts herself in the middle of a romantic dilemma (falling in love with her subject); she braves difficult moments, and counsels the protagonist and his family in the ways of the world.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? She’s in LA working at a TV show, and the protagonist calls her to help get media coverage on the national level. She takes a sabbatical, packs up, and goes back home to investigate.
5. What is this character’s emotional range? As a smart woman, she begins with compassion and empathy, mixed with curiosity. She begins by not knowing “if there’s smoke, is there fire?” Through the story, once she knows they’re innocent, she cries with the family, goes head-to-head with lawyers and others, and becomes an advocate.
6. What subtext can the actor play? She’s very conflicted. At first, in interviewing and “finding the story,” she’s trying to discover if her old friends broke the law. Once she knows they didn’t, she’s stuck between journalistic integrity and falling in love. She’s also worried about the kids in the family, who are gobsmacked by the situation.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? With the protagonist (friend and eventual lover); defense lawyer (who suspects her motives, and then comes to trust her).
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented? She’s the calm, reasonable one—always analyzing and helping soothe nerves. No matter how freaked she might actually be.
9. What makes this character special and unique? She’s the only one who can “see what the public might see.” Lawyers ask her “how does this look,” or “what is the public getting from this?” She’s the canary in the coal mine, their link to the outside world.
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Lori Lance’s Actor Attractors
Vision: I want to be a professional screenwriter recognized by the industry as the go-to for family-friendly scripts and have multiple successful movies produced.
What I learned: to think beyond the story and consider how my characters might attract actors
Title: AI Mom
Genre: family comedy
ACTOR ATTRACTORS
Lead Character Name: Alex (the AI)
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role?
Alex is a role that could showcase an actress’ comedic skills and be a lot of fun to play.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? Alex is center stage throughout most of the movie, and she gets to pretend to be an AI.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie?
A family hires Alex to fill Mom’s shoes temporarily. Everything is new to Alex. She tries to become the best mom and wife. She schemes to get rid of the real mom. She nearly destroys the house and family. She becomes the enemy until she is destroyed.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
She is introduced as the answer to one family’s problems, yet there is a glitch that we know will cause more problems for the family at some point.
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
There’s a wide range of emotions as an AI. She can come off as having no feelings, but as she begins to learn and incorporate herself into the family, she shows a wide range of emotions, such as anger, resentment, jealousy, etc., that get the best of her and the rest of the family.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
While Alex is hired to help fill the mom’s shoes while she’s away, she wants to take Mom’s place permanently.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
Her most interesting relationships are with the family as she tries to figure out how to be a wife and mother and her rivalry with the real mom.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
Alex looks human but isn’t, so her speech/actions should be somewhat robot-like.
9. What makes this character special and unique?
She’s an AI gone rogue.
ACTOR ATTRACTORS
Lead Character Name: Claire (mom)
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role?
She represents the average middle-aged mom who wonders if she missed something by being a stay-at-home mom. She figures she has one last shot at making her dreams come true.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie?
The audience will want to know how Claire will react to an AI trying to take her place.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie?
She starts a new chapter in her life as she is ready to reenter the workforce after years of being a stay-at-home mom. The audience will be rooting for her and concerned when an AI is hired to fill her shoes. Her dreams are coming true, but then there’s trouble at home. How is she going to react?
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
Claire is introduced as an efficient mom as she tries to prepare her family for her time away. She’s somewhat of a supermom, but she’s about to embark on a new and exciting chapter in her life.
5. What is this character’s emotional range? Claire is serious, caring, and excited in the beginning. When she realizes what’s happening in her home and family, she becomes a momma bear ready for war.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
How will this supermom react when someone tries to take her place as mom and wife?
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
the family and her rival with an AI
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
supermom to momma bear
9. What makes this character special and unique?
She has an AI trying to take her place and take over her home.
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Tracy’s Actor Attractors
I just love creating Actor Attractors for my characters!
I will do whatever it takes to become a successful author and screenwriter with multiple successful movies produced.
What I learned from doing this assignment is I have a pretty good handle on what makes Anna and Benjamin Actor Attractors. I’m not as sure about Uncle William, but there is time for this to evolve.
Lead Character Name: ANNA ASBURY STONE
Protagonist
Role: Colonial wife who saves the American Revolution
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
A female protagonist in an American Revolution film. This is nonexistent. A woman who defies social convention and the odds. She sets out to bring life-sustaining supplies to her loved ones at Valley Forge and ends up saving the entire American Revolution.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
Anna never gives up. She is the embodiment of grit and determination. She makes a transformational journey from wife who’s going to help her husband and brothers to courier/spy and saboteur who no longer cares about the boundaries
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Determined to use her skill as a healer to keep her husband and brothers alive during the bitter winter at Valley Forge, Anna sets out on her journey against the advice of her family. In two parallel scenes, she falls in the freezing Potomac River at a ferry crossing and is nearly drowned. Later, when she is carrying a secret message for General Washington and pursued by a man who is trying to steal it, she uses an even more treacherous crossing at the Susquehanna River to get a head start on her pursuer.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Anna manages the responsibilities of wife, mother, healer with ease and confidence. She is an equal partner in her marriage to Benjamin Stone, an outlaw preacher and abolitionist, and believes in the cause of liberty as ardently as he does. When she must go to his aid, she evolves into a street smart survivor and spy who a) embarks on a treacherous 200-mile solo horseback journey to Valley Forge, and b) upon arrival, when the soldiers don’t believe her story—stands up to and convinces them, and then goes toe-to-toe with Alexander Hamilton to gain an audience with General Washington and complete her mission.
5. What could be Anna’s emotional range?
Grew up as an orphan and indentured servant. Has found her place in a happy and passionate marriage with her soul mate.
Decides to make a dangerous solo journey to Valley Forge to keep him alive. Overly confident at the beginning of the journey, she soon realizes she’s out of her depth. Though fearful and sometimes confused, she learns to survive on the road. Willingly accepts the additional burden of carrying a secret message from a congressman to Gen. Washington, though it puts her life in even more jeopardy. Determined to succeed at all costs to preserve her family—and keep the Revolution alive.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Concealing her intelligence. Concealing her identity. Navigating a man’s world. From healer to someone who uses violence to survive and achieve her own ends.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
Anna has an equal partnership with her husband. We see their relationship from its beginning through flashbacks, up to their reunion at Valley Forge.
Anna’s maternal figure is her surrogate mother, Rhoda, the enslaved woman who raised and protected Anna during her years as an indentured servant. Rhoda taught Anna about herbal remedies and healing, and Anna taught Rhoda to read. Rhoda put herself on the line to protect Anna, but Anna fails to save Rhoda.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Through the contrast between her reactions to life before and after she leaves for Valley Forge. Her introspection while traveling alone reveals events from her past that shaped her into the woman who would risk all.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
She is the bona fide MAIN CHARACTER. She is not just a cast member who is someone’s wife, or a tavern wench, or a pawn. She is a doer.
Her determination, and her adaptability as she learns spy craft and tactics that will keep her alive and ward off trouble while she’s on the road. Her “equal” status in her marriage is unusual for the time, yet she behaves and thinks like an 18<sup>th</sup> century woman.
Lead Character Name: UNCLE WILLIAM ASBURY
Antagonist
Role: Anna’s disapproving uncle
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
William’s attitude about the war—that if we win independence, we’ll wish ourselves back, stems from the fact that he’s got a lot to lose. He is self-made and has supported Anna’s widowed mother and Anna and her siblings intermittently since his older brother, George, died and left his young family with no means of support. He’s a snob and jealously guards his wealth—and it’s a huge turnabout when he supports Anna making the journey. He even gives her money she’ll need on the road—there’s just one catch. She must deliver a bill of sale to one of his business associates.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
William has worked hard to build his personal wealth, and he’s made some unscrupulous decisions along the way. Now, with the war dragging on, he worries about his finances enough that he resorts to some underhanded business deals.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
When he is faced with supporting his dead brother’s family and paying off his brother’s debts, he signs Anna to a 7-ytear indenture with one of his business associates. He puts two of Anna’s brothers in apprenticeships, but keeps the youngest for himself, making Jeremiah his heir, sending him to university, and setting him up in a law practice. He breaks up Anna’s family in an unequitable way, with no qualms.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
William is an enigma. We’re never sure exactly what his motives are. He disdains that his nephews have gone to fight in the war, yet two years prior, he enlisted in the Culpeper Minutemen and fought in one of the early battles of the war. To protect his wealth, he has turned to shady dealings that hurt the army, even though he has four nephews away fighting. He supports Anna’s journey, but only because he can use her to further his schemes.
5. What could be William’s emotional range?
Bluster, insulting, baiting, to disconsolate when he cannot convince his heir, Jeremiah, not to enlist. He can disapprove of Anna’s marriage, but then be unexpectedly kind by giving her a saddle horse as part of her dowry and giving her money and a list of contacts where she can find lodgings while she’s on the road—but when it comes down to it, he’s out for number one.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
He appears disapproving, opinionated, and unbending. Then he shows a soft spot, but it’s just a ruse. He doesn’t play nice unless he wants something. Manipulative.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
He intimidates Anna, and since she lives under his roof, she’s afraid to antagonize him too much, but Benjamin’s brother Thomas and William go toe to toe and Thomas isn’t a bit afraid of him.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
He’s saying all the unpatriotic things. He challenges Anna’s starry-eyed notions about liberty and independence, and he primes her for what she’ll face on the road, when her own convictions about the war come under scrutiny.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
He’s the grumpy old guy you love to hate. For a while we believe he’s really got a good heart, but then he turns out to be a bad guy with no principles.
Lead Character Name: BENJAMIN STONE
Protagonist
Role: Husband to Anna
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
He’s an outlaw preacher who has been persecuted for his faith all his life, and now, with the coming of the Revolution, he sees an opportunity. Weakening the Crown’s hold in America will weaken the Church of England’s hold on Virginia. He has no hesitation about fighting for independence. He’s a forward-thinking abolitionist and wants a wife who is an equal partner.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
He truly believes liberty is for everyone—including his wife, his daughter, the enslaved, etc. He’s been raised like any farm boy of his time, but he also yearns to be an intellectual. He uses his knowledge to challenge the laws of the time. He’s devoted to his wife and family but cannot ignore the fight which could make his dream of worshipping without persecution a reality.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
He encourages dissention and goes up against the establishment long before he enlists in the Continental Army.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
At first he’s a fish out of water—in his family, his older brother is the alpha, and he’s an intellectual, even though he also has all the skills a farmer needs. When he meets Anna, he sees his future, with an intelligent, beautiful woman who is a match for him in every sense of the word. Marrying her in his chosen faith—outside the Anglican church—is an act of rebellion. He vows to defy her mother, the priest, and the Crown to marry her in his chosen faith—and he comes into his own, both in their passionate marriage and in his advancement of the cause of liberty. Whether he speaks from the pulpit or at the village tavern, he is persuasive, and people follow his lead.
5. What could be Benjamin’s emotional range?
When we meet Benjamin, he is shy around girls. When he meets Anna at church, he barely speaks to her, but he’s besotted and determined to win her. He has a calming presence, and the only one who really gets his goat is his older brother Thomas, who is a brash loudmouth. Benjamin has to be peacemaker when Thomas stirs up trouble. He is not as conflicted about leaving his family to fight in the war as Anna would like. He has the courage of his convictions. He has a sharp sense of humor and enjoys the verbal sparring he does with his wife.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
He is a preacher, yet he’s willing to fight and kill to get what he wants. He loves his family, but he is willing to leave them to enlist in the army, knowing perhaps he will never return.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
Benjamin and his older brother Thomas are close in age. They have probably beaten each other up every day of their childhoods—but if someone else threatens one of them—the other would defend him to the death.
Benjamin is Anna’s rock. He has provided the stability she craved after being forced into an indenture in her childhood after the death of her father. He knows Anna has flourished in their relationship, but he still chooses to leave her to fight because independence from the Crown would secure not just their futures, but their descendants’ as well.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Benjamin is present in flashbacks through most of the story. When Anna finds him at the end of her journey, can he live up to her idealized version of him?
9. What could make this character special and unique?
Benjamin was on fire for the things he cared about—religious freedom, independence, and Anna. His abolitionist views inform his actions, particularly in how he treats his wife. He will not subjugate anyone—especially not the woman he reveres above all others.
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Terrie’s Actor Attractors
I write screenplays that get turned into crowd pleasing successful films using a process that allows me to enjoy my equestrian hobby.
What I learned doing this assignment is that I’ll need to make sure I write in the comedic elements. This helped me get some insights into my characters.
Actor Attractors:
Movie: You Gotta Be Ex-ing
Lead Character: Piage
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role?
Paige is clever and composed, no one gets under her skin – except James/Jason.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie?
She is outstanding at her job but she can act ditzy if it helps her get the job done.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie?
Takes down the bad guy; profiles the person that puts her and James/Jason in danger. Uses information traps to catch the inside person.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
She’s on an awful date with a guy that’s dating her because she’s law enforcement (there’s probably a name for this – holster sniffer) so she profiles him, aloud, in as demeaning and as derogatory way possible.
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
Composed, angry, frustrated, sympathetic, in love. Basically she’s got some serious emotional armor when we meet her due to her previous relationship with James. But as the story moves along they heal, rekindle their relationship and end up in love.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
How much James hurt her yet still has feelings for him (which leads to the question – why?)
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
Her relationship with James, they have a great deal of history and baggage to work through. And what was she doing dating this whack job?
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
Intellect, very correct in her professional behavior, psychologically sizes people oup.
9. What makes this character special and unique?
Her ability to profile and take down people intellectually rather than with a weapon.
Lead Character: James/Jason
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role?
He’s super quirky but charming. And he’s funny (well I need to make him funny)
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie?
He’s got a conspiracy theory to explain EVERY TRIVIAL THING
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie?
Insisting his ex Girl friend handle his protection. Somewhere he needs to step up to help keep Paige safe, even though it means disregarding one of his conspiracy theories.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
With his paranoid conspiracy theory rantings on a flip phone, make this funny. Can I find a way to introduce them at the same time?
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
Terrified, disconnected, in love, confused, hurt
6. What subtext can the actor play?
His deep fear of whoever he is testifying against. Fear of losing Paige again. Fear that the conspiracy theories are true or worse, they aren’t and his life choices are a sham.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
With Paige – he knows he blew it.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
Total dedication to multiple conspiracy theories.
9. What makes this character special and unique?
His crazy beliefs in conspiracy theories.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Terrie Shaft.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by
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Micki’s Actor Attractors!
My vision: Be recognized as a writer that will work with the industry and would do what it takes to be that WRITER.
What I learned from doing this assignment is fun, and tedious work, well worth it. So while doing this assignment, dig deeper into the characters.
I am EMPOWERED!
ACTOR ATTRACTOR TEMPLATE
Movie title: FIREWORKS
Lead Character Name: DAKOTA TANNER
Role: Protagonist
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
This is a teacher that loves and puts others before herself. She has a chance at happiness when she ends the feud with her sister.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
She is easy going until you get her pissed off. Keeping a seret from her younger sister.
What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
The realization that she has to fight for her happiness and for the man she loves. She tries to end the feud with her sister.
How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Rides on a motorcycle with her man and is cool as a cucumber around her sister.
What could be this character’s emotional range?
Nice, friendly, to outrage anger.
What subtext can the actor play?
She is keeping the fact she is marrying her high school sweetheart, the person that her sister caused a break-up.
What’s the most interesting relationship this character can have?
John Grant, he knows Dakota wants peace between her sister.
How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Love for her family, anger, and finally happiness.
What could make this character special and unique?
She deeply cares for her sister and her family. With understanding that she deserves to be happy and have joy in her life.
Movie title: FIREWORKS
Lead Character Name: BLAKE RILEY
Role: Antagonist (yunger sister)
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
That she is a spit-fire with anger issues against her sister for stealing her guy during high school. She breaks them up so she can have him, which backfires on her.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
The irony is that she is married with three children and is unhappy with her life, even though her family lives comfortably where she gets to stay at home.
What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
She gets locked up in the attic with her sister and they argue and have a physical fight. And founds out her sister has keep a secret from her
How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
She and her sister race to the house as they did when they were kids. While her family watches and shakes their heads. .
What could be this character’s emotional range?
Brat to anger to accept her life.
What subtext can the actor play?
She wants the feud to keep going because she is upset that she settled.
What’s the most interesting relationship(s) this character can have?
Her sister, Blake, knows how to use the “poor me” button.
How will this character’s unique voice be present?
By being sniding, controlling through caring that she can muster up.
What could make this character special and unique?
Her dramatic high school scheming to get what she wants.
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Sandra’s Actor Attractors!
Vision: I am doing what I love to do as a writer with several successful produced movies.
What I learned is that this is a fun and great assignment for creating really unique and interesting characters with more depth, and clarifying their emotions, actions, subtext, relationships and voice.
Actor Attractors
Lead Character Name: Captain Sloane (protagonist)
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this movie? Inspired by a true story of a young sea captain who is lured into the dangerous, interesting and intriguing world of oil smuggling. Sloane also wrestles with his values and identity.
2. What makes this character the most interesting character in the movie? The irony of him pretending to be innocent and friends with everyone, while he smuggles, launders money, and fakes documents. His transformational journey from timid and afraid to confident and fearless.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? Sloane is beaten up when he discovers the oil smuggling. He faces a major dilemma of being honest or joining in on the smuggling. He requests to meet Mr. Big. He fakes documents in a back booth of a bar. He treats the police raids as if he was expecting them and invites them in for a drink.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? As an adult he calmly sits at home watching sports on tv enjoying a drink, when the police with guns ready unexpectedly bang on his door. Twenty years earlier, as a child at home with his mother, he is nervous and afraid when the police knock on the front door.
5. What is this characters emotional range? From afraid, anxious, insecure and self-doubting to self-confident, courageous, accomplished, and relaxed.
6. What subtext can the actor play? When he talks, he is scheming. His youth, innocence and organizational skills are deceiving. He is much smarter than he looks and acts. He comes across as the victim, when he’s the victimizer.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? Sloane has an interesting relationship with Mr. Big, a money changer, who becomes Sloane’s smuggling partner. They appear to be best buddies, but don’t trust each other and disagree on most things. Sloane also has an interesting relationship with Reginald, a military officer who will shoot Sloane if he catches him smuggling. Sloane acts like they are best friends and pays him off.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented? Through his ability to defuse violent situations and smoothly talk his way out of being captured.
9. What makes this character special and unique? His friendly, charming manner, his loyalty to others, and pretending to be calm in difficult situations, which came from being raised by his alcoholic mother.
Lead Character Name: Mr. Big (antagonist)
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this movie? He appears to be a legitimate respectable banker, but is actually a notorious, powerful, and controlling money changer.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? He uses other people to do his dirty work.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? He has Sloane beaten up. He has one of Sloane’s ships set on fire and another one sunk. He puts a hit out on the house boy.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? He is first introduced in name only by other characters, and physically introduced when Sloane requests to meet him.
5. What is this characters emotional range? From friendly and helpful, to angry and threatening.
6. What subtext can the actor play? From the beginning he knows he is in control and will defeat anyone who gets in his way.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? His relationship with Sloane. He appears to be best friends, but betrays Sloane and sets him up.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented? Through contrast of being friendly and helpful while greedily scheming and planning an attack.
9. What makes this character special and unique? The irony of him being a powerful man who controls others, but he’s actually small in size and stature. He appears to be friendly and generous, but is really greedy and deceptive.
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Laura Koons’ Actor Attractors!
My vision: I am an Oscar winning Screenwriter known to elevate the careers of A-list actors and directors.
What I learned from doing this assignment is really getting into character development by doing a deep dive into how I want their life to be portrayed.
Lead Character Name: Heather Harrington
Role: Protagonist
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Heather has a past that makes her unique. Being able to persevere after being dumped off at an orphanage by her own mother.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
Heather is a marketing genius who can persuade anyone into anything.
What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Showing off her talent for philanthropy. They ability to easily get what her estranged mother has always desperately wanted… money.
How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Her introduction as a child with her loving father and also as an adult with her best supporting friend.
What could be this character’s emotional range?
Range goes from numb, confusion, resentment, trust, love.
What subtext can the actor play?
Always seems like she is in control, a perfectionist, but inside she is a hot mess.
What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
Heather’s relationship with her childhood best friend Charles,
How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Always in control, calm, and collected when it comes to architecture and real estate.
What could make this character special and unique?
Heather’s Cinderella backstory and her determination to make something of herself.
Lead Character Name: Decatur MacGill
Role: Protagonist
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
He thinks outside the box. Uses his talents to create, build up, and is just an overall good guy.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
He restores not only antiques, but relationships too.
What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
For Decatur to be the man that Heather Harrington needs him to be.
How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
He drives his boat for target practice using buoys on a private lake and his pistol.
What could be this character’s emotional range?
From stoic to passionate.
What subtext can the actor play?
He is always calculating the people, the environment, on any potential dangers even though he acts nonchalant.
What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
His relationship with Heather Harrington and the young boy at the marina.
How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Besides his Scottish accent, he is a type of renaissance man. Knows a lot and can do a lot making people confused on his profession.
What could make this character special and unique?
He lives on a sailboat and works to restore classic wooden Chris Craft boats.
Decatur can become an animal whisperer, as well.
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Leona Heraty’s Actor Attractors!
My Vision: To be the best family comedy screenwriter in the industry and have all of my screenplays produced into fabulous movies!
What I learned from doing this assignment is…Actor Attractors are fun to build into the main characters because they help make my characters unique and fun!
Title: Tara vs. the Termo-Lytes!
Genre: Comedy (sci-fi)
Concept: A teenage tour guide with no sense of direction takes a wrong turn and leads her group to an abandoned country club overrun by giant mutant termites.ACTOR ATTRACTOR TEMPLATE
Lead Character Name: Tara
Role: Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? Tara is an unusual 18-year old because she’s unusually afraid of bugs, she has no sense of direction and she’s a scaredy cat and a bumbler.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? Tara has some strange quirks…she’s 18 but still loves to climb trees, she’s unusually afraid of bugs, like a little girl and she harbors a secret trauma from her childhood,
She likes to add “ISH” to the end of many of her words, in honor of one of her favorite singers, Billie Eilish, and she loves mid-century modern design, especially the Tiki culture.
Tara starts out as a scaredy cat bumbler and ends up as a fierce warrior who fights giant mutant termites, AKA the Termo-Lytes in hand-to-hand combat and wins!
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? In the opening scene, she a bug flies into her car while she’s driving. She speeds up, then crashes her car on the curb, jumps out and climbs a tree, as a cop tries to pull her over.
In the final scene, she leads the fight, along with 10-year old Robbie and 90-year old Margaret and 95-year old George, against the giant mutant termites. She figures out an ingenious way to kill the Termo-Lytes, with palm tree frond skink bombs!
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? In the opening scene, while Tara is driving and giving her philosophy about hiding when things get scary. She also talks about her fear of bugs, and that she loves old and current sci-fi bug and creature moves, where the hero fights the bugs/creatures and wins.
She explains can live vicariously through the hero without sticking her neck out or being in danger herself. She also adds “ISH” to many words when she speaks because she loves Billie Eilish’s songs.
A bug flies in her car window, she freaks out, guns it, crashes on a curb, jumps out and climbs up a tree to get away from it!
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? Tara starts out as a bumbling scaredy cat without any sense of direction and very little self-confidence, and she ends up as a fearless warrior who fights giant mutant termites, AKA the Termo-Lytes, who are trying to eat her and her tour group, and she wins!
6. What subtext can the actor play? Tara has an aversion to bugs and to corn on the cob, and the movie Children of the Corn, and makes reference to “being lost in a found world” and alludes to a childhood terror, and it’s revealed at the end of the movie what she’s referring to.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? She starts out being sick of her pesky 10-year old neighbor, Robbie, and trying to get rid of him, to working with him to kill the mutant termites, AKA Termo-Lytes, and the two get to know each other and see their other sides and share their secrets and at the end of the movie, they become good friends.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? Through the contrast of Tara’s unnatural fear of bugs and the fact that she has a love/hate relationship with creature feature movies, where she can live through the hero vicariously.
9. What could make this character special and unique? Tara’s goofy, scaredy-cat ways in the opening scene and her obsession with creature feature and bug movies, and how she uses this knowledge and courage she’s gain vicariously through the movie hero’s to fight the giant mutant Termo-Lytes and win! She gets her courage and ideas to fight the giant bugs from various creature feature and bug movies she’s watched since childhood.
ACTOR ATTRACTOR TEMPLATE
Lead Character Name: Termo-Lyte #1, AKA the Queen
Role: Antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
I’m assuming since this is a 10- or 15-foot giant mutant termite, this will be played by a voice actor. The Queen is charming, but manipulative and underneath, very mean and vicious. She wants to take over the world and lay Termo-Lyte eggs everywhere and kill all the humans. She pretends she is hurt to get Tara and the group’s sympathy then she strikes out at them and tries to wrap them up in her web.2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? The irony of Queen being so sweet and motherly…she even knits booties for the baby Termo-Lytes.
She says she just wants to live in peace and co-exist with humans… like Charlotte in Charlotte’s Web, but that’s a façade, and she’s secretly building a giant nest to lay her numerous eggs. Underneath it all, she’s crazy, power hungry and vicious. She isn’t just happy to take over the country club…she wants to take over San Diego, SoCal, then the world!
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? Queen hides and spews forth a pinkish red substance that looks like blood, to get Tara and the group’s sympathy…but the substance is a toxic goo that can paralyze a human.
In the final scene, Queen even bites off her own long leg and uses it as a weapon to fight in hand-to-hand combat with Tara, Robbie, Margaret and George.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? Queen starts out being friendly to Tara and the group as she’s cooking on a stove and making dinner for the Termo-Lytes. She even bakes a bug pie!
Queen invites Tara and her group to join them for dinner, then gains their trust and then wraps them up with yarn and throws them in her “pot on the stove for seasoning.” She’s so charming at first, even though she’s scary looking and a ten foot tall mutant termite, but she can become mean and vicious if Tara or anyone looks at her funny or she gets hungry, which is often.
She and the Termo-Lytes are half-way through eating the wood at the country club, and she says “people taste like wood and have good protein,” so when they finish all the wood, they’ll enjoy eating Tara and her friends.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? Queen starts out faking like she’s in distress, and she’s just a helpless six-inch tall Termo-Lyte and she’s friendly and sweet…but over time, her mean side takes over and she becomes her true self…a vicious killer with a big appetite!
6. What subtext can the actor play? Queen talks about craving healthy green smoothies, and all kinds of lean proteins, because she’s on the Keto diet. However, the green smoothies are really the green “toxic” vat of bug killer goo that somebody left in a workroom at the country club, not knowing that the concoction is “really quiet delicious, nutritious and helps us Termo-Lytes grow big and strong.”
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
Queen strikes up a friendship with Tara at first, because she’s in distress and Tara feels sorry for her and comes to her aid. She also strikes up a friendship with Robbie, but nobody realizes that she wants to get Robbie to drink some of the green goo, so he’ll become a Termo-Lyte too, and the bugs can make him their new mascot.8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? Through the contrast of Queen’s sweet, kindly, but fake nature, and her vicious, hissing, striking, people-eating true self when her true nature is revealed. She can even change color from a pretty light pastels when she’s sweet to angry red and orange when she’s ready to kill them!
9. What could make this character special and unique? Queen’s dramatic appeal for help and faking her injury and crying when Tara and the group first come upon her at the country club to her vicious, true nature being revealed at the end when she tries to cook them in a pot of green goo and make a giant smoothie out of them! She can change colors as her mood changes, from sweet and light and frothy mint green and pinks to angry red and orange.
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CJ’s Actor Attractors
Vision: I am a confident and empowered writer who embraces challenges and changes and writes highly sought-after projects with fresh and exciting ideas. I will be produced and hired to write projects that get produced.
WIL: I mistakenly took a stab at this for Lesson 1 – but loved the ability to dig deeper and expand and find nuggets that really make the characters unique and stand out. This version is stronger and adds depth.
Title: MEMORY HUNTERS
Concept:
In a future with technology to retrieve memories, a Memory Retrevalist, caught in the mind of a psychopath struggles to find a way out before he destroys her mind and kills her.
ACTOR ATTRACTORS:
Movie Title: MEMORY HUNTER
Lead Character Name: MYA ORTEGA – Takes most interesting actions – range of emotions / relationships
Role: Memory hunter – protatonist
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role?
The character arc allows for a wide range of emotions and growth – She never dealt with her childhood trauma where she was abducted and escaped but not before experiencing the terrors at the hands of a psychopath. Once inserted in the mind – she finally confronts and can face her fear. Only she can do this – as she is the one that got away.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie?
She comes wounded from a childhood drama which is related to her brain tumor. The doctors believe her brain tumor is psychosomatic – a defense mechanism she hides behind rather than deal with issues.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie?
She hides her wounds through denial and then becomes confident and not only confronts her past but becomes a spokesperson for others who have been abused – as she faces her fear and confronts the psychopath – she also frees herself and confronts a son who is abusing his mother as looks to take all her money.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
The ordinary world shows her in denial about her past – yet she has an intriguing job in find lost, missing, or hidden memories. As she probes an elderly lady, she sees evidence that the woman is routinely abused by her son – Mya becomes intimidated by the son – after her period in the psycho’s mind she confronts the son and protects the woman.
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
Growth from afraid / timid to confident and assured. Uses her anger from her past to drive her future.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
The subtext is how her past defined her until she learns to master her past. She bluffs that she’s okay but when she must face her past it almost destroys her until she finds her inner strength that helped her to escape the first time.
7.What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
A. relationship with her partner – She relies on him for advice (he betrays her)
B. Psycho – they have a past no one knows about – this time she wants to finish him, and he wants to finish what he started.
C. with her boss – She trusts to listen to her concerns – then thinks he is the one who set her up (red-herring) and inserted her in the psycho’s mind.
D. with her sister – Who pushes her to let her past go
E. with her friend – Who offers her an unbiased view of the world
F. CEO – who is making deals with the criminals and set Mya up and frames Frank.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
She champions those who have been abused or are in need to fill her own need to have someone champion her – as she learns she is her own best champion.
9. What makes this character special and unique?
She is unique in that she is the only survivor to escape from this psychopath – and knows how he will behave – eventually she will use this against him.
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ACTOR ATTRACTORS
Movie Title: MEMORY HUNTER
Lead Character Name: Dr. Catherine Harpie – Relationships that are interesting
ROLE: CEO of the company (antagonist)
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role?
She is a devious and conniving yet a congenial face to the public. She has a soft spot for animals.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie?
She is very convincing to the public of the service they provide while making deals with the criminals as she helps them cover up their misdeeds. Often deceiving the criminal and taking all the money for herself.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie?
She wins over the public and the criminals to build her empire and tries to eliminate Mya when Mya stumbles on her plans.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
Catherine holds a press conference about a high-level opportunity for the organization. She sees a man yanking his dog along – she interrupts the interview to reprimand the man – and takes the dog from him.
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
Conniving, devious, soft spot for older people and animals.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Hides her real agenda to use the company for her own gain.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
With Terry and Freddie. Terry is her partner who brokers her deals with the criminals. Freddie is her biggest challenge as he doesn’t want anything so she promises him the “one that got away” so he can rectify the situation which eliminates Mya from Catherine’s issue.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
Confident and commanding she controls everything
9. What makes this character special and unique?
Only she can do what is being done and she sets up Frank Yorgen as the fall guy
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ACTOR ATTRACTORS
Movie Title: MEMORY HUNTERS
Character Name: Alfred “Freddie” Detton – notoriety
ROLE: Supporting role for the antagonist
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role?
Free reign as a character who takes pain and his behavior to the extreme – he humiliates his victims then dresses them as Barbie Doll characters (TBD) – or women from history he wants to dominate.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie?
The psycho with nothing to lose and is offered a chance to get the “one that got away”
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie?
He knows Mya is coming and he can’t wait to reclaim her – he’s proud of his memories as he shows them off to her – he is giddy like a child – these become his downfall later
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
We meet him “virtually” by how shaken Terry is when he comes out of his mind
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
Limited – only enjoys watching other suffer at his hands
6. What subtext can the actor play?
His platitudes are his way of playing with his victims – he offers condolences after they have been humiliated – says he will make it better… even apologizes giving false hope.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
Mya and lying and playing with Dr. Harpie
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
His single tracked mind to torture others for his own enjoyment
9. What makes this character special and unique?
He helps Mya inadvertently overcome her own memories to teach her that her past doesn’t have to define her future – that she may have been a victim once… but she didn’t have to stay that way – then he thinks she’s his but it’s what she needed to goad her into action.
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ACTOR ATTRACTORS
Movie Title: MEMORY HUNTERS
Character Name: Terry Sullivan – Subtext and interesting actions
Role: Supporting role
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role?
A duplicitous role – friend and foe for Mya. He is having an affair with the CEO and does her bidding to set up the criminals and go through their minds – getting info and then erasing his presence so they can move the money before the feds can find it.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie?
Terry’s duplicitous role isn’t discovered until almost too late. He has free reign into the minds of criminals to gain access to illicit dollars / etc.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie?
He gains Mya’s trust and then betrays her to hide his partnership with Dr. Harpie
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
As a seasoned memory hunter, he is sent in to comb through the memories of psycho killer and it overwhelms him it is so twisted.
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
Beguiling too treacherous and vicious
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Being Mya’s friend – many of his discussion later reveal his way of warning her and then setting her up – preying on her insecurities.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
Mya and with Dr. Harpie
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
He is a showoff – He is the most experienced memory hunter, so he is the most knowledgeable. Knows the ins and outs of the mind and how to separate false memories from real.
9. What makes this character special and unique?
His ability to win over the “minds” that he offers secret deals with and his manipulation of others including Mya
Sister: Stella – interesting relationship
Friend: Jeremy – relationships
Mya’s Boss: Dr. Frank Yorgen – interesting actions
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Tina’s Actor Attractors!
My Vision: My writing enables me to live an exuberantly creative and productive life in prosperity.
ARGUS’ EYES
A teenage girl has her disfigured face reconstructed at a beauty clinic in the Black Forest, only to discover that her new face is just a mask and she is now the livestock for a blind demon who has stolen her eyes for himself.————————————
Lead Character Name:
Valentina Flemmin, 16
Role: Protagonist
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
A raw and unsocial behaviour because she had to fight for herself since early childhood combined with unconditional empathy for the ones that need her help.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
-she steals from friends and foes alike, it’s her means of survival and hard to quit.
-manipulated by psychologists her whole life she can play the game better than anyone
What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
she doesn’t trust the norm because the system betrayed her
Her unsocial behavior leads her to uncovering the demon
– she lives off the grid, can’t be confined and always choses to make her own path. takes the window instead of the door, eats in a tree, sits on the ground or on the table, sleeps under the bed, her bag is always packed,
She blames her missing eye for all the rejection she experienced. So when she gets a ‘normal’ face she clings to the hope that now her life will change. But to really change she has to trust her grandmother and disfigure her face even more to save them and find where she belongs.
How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
She stays cool when her attacker gets mutilated and then let’s Ayla clean the blood off of her to have a loving moment in the midst of total gore and violence.
What could be this character’s emotional range?
From cold and distant when facing people dying or struggling to absolute self sacrifice and violence when protecting her friend Ayla.
What subtext can the actor play?
On the outside she’s cool, inside she’s screaming of pain and rage.
What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
– Val distrusts her grandma Agatha but choses to ‘play family’ with her to just have the experience even if it’s fake. She copies poses from other people’s family photos.
– Val only trusts one person and that is Ayla, her friend from the orphanage. Val can be cold an even cruel to others, but with Ayla she’s loving and over protective.
How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Val doesn’t seem to let anything that is done to her upset her. She has brutal comebacks that reflect her dislike for everyone around her and ,after being under the supervision of therapists all her life, she knows exactly which buttons to push to make people explode.
What could make this character special and unique?
Val’s reactions and actions are either ice cold or scorching hot.
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Agatha Flemmin, 55 and Val’s estranged grandmother
Role: Protagonist
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Agatha is a 55 year old woman terrorized by a demon since 16 years who feeds on her power.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
Her inner fight to break free from his spell makes her the most tormented character. She
What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Agatha watches Val get injured without helping her. She welcomes her into the clinic with a big smile while a tear of blood runs down her perfect face.
What could be this character’s emotional range
From perfect host to hateful and desperate avenger.
What subtext can the actor play?
Agatha is in a constant war against the demon’s oppression. Whenever the demon’s powers weaken, she tries to sabotage its influence and save her granddaughter Valentina. This makes her behavior seem irrational and crazy.
What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
Agatha sent Val away as a baby to get her out of the demon’s reach. She pretends to not want her to keep her away.
How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Agatha’s contradictive behaviour from over sweet to hostile to fearless warrior makes her unpredictable.
What could make this character special and unique?
Agatha’s contradictive behaviour from over sweet to hostile to fearless warrior makes her unpredictable.
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ARGUS / Demon born from a with executioner
Role: Antagonist
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
A new monster with the power and eyes of his ‘prisoners’. Tormented by the pain that a witch took his eyes and now haunting her ancestors to find peace in revenge.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
Not vivibly present he is there all the time and controlling and protecting his live stock.
What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
He takes their eyes for his own, his body covered in eyes.
How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
He appears in a group, everyone frozen with shock while he feeds on their powers. But when he leaves nobody can remember what happened, they just feel exhausted somehow.
What could be this character’s emotional range
He is flirty when in control and deadly when threatened, killing his life stock (the patients) and so harming himself.
What subtext can the actor play?
Underneath all is a desire to be seen. The witches got their memorial, he got killed on the job and got nothing.
What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
The demon is obsessed with Val because she is the one that got away, he only took one of her eyes.
How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
The demon is non verbal. He depends on the witches powers and sucks it out, but he is a gourmet, nothing tastes as good as the Flemmin family.
What could make this character special and unique?
His body covered with the eyes he took. With them he can see what they are seeing. He can make everyone who sees him forget him. He sees all. His ‘livestock’ sees nothing.
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Kelly’s Actor attractors!
Vision: I want to be an empowered writer who consistently produces salable scripts.
I learned that all I had to do was just allow myself to fill in the blanks and just create. I feel very encouraged because from the beginning I am designing a role that an actor will want to play.
Lead Character Name:QuinnRole: Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? This is great role for a young actress with a range of emotions to play.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? Quinn is the lead role and will be in nearly every scene of the movie
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? The character becomes a leader as the story unfolds and is the one that defeats the aliens.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? Her opening scene she is a rebel without a cause and an independent thinker.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? There are a range of emotions to play with. There is rage, happiness, sadness, disconnectedness, and hopelessness.
6. What subtext can the actor play? Skepticism, plotting, distrust.
7. What’s the most interesting relationship this character can have? Her relationship with one of the camper characters and the antagonist.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? She is an independent thinker and rebellious. She is always looking for a fight.
9. What could make this character special and unique? Quinn is like a combination of Sigourney Weaver in Alien, a young Paris Hilton and Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club.
Lead Character Name: DariusRole: Antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? This character is mysterious and a manipulator.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? This character pretends to be one person and in actuality is the complete opposite.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? The character leads the crowd in singing with complete joy and is a vicious mureere.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? I think showing how cruel and ruthless this character is in combination with charisma and full of joy.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? Character displays blissfulness, rage, playful and cunning.
6. What subtext can the actor play? Scheming, plotting, pretending to be someone else.
7. What’s the most interesting relationship this character can have? The character is caring towards the campers, and the one that will kill them all.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? The character will be Mr. Positive and at the same time ruthless and cunning.
9. What could make this character special and unique? This character is a combination of Matthew Broderick in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Ralph Fiennes in Schindler’s list.
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Elizabeth’s Own Actor Attractors
My Vision: I write kickass, creative and emotional blockbuster movies, TV series and graphic novels like my writing heroes (eg. Jonathan Nolan, Joseph Weisberg, etc.) and be in constant demand.
What I learned from doing this assignment: I learned that by sgiving actor attractors, you can give them interesting character traits as well as interesting scenes and situations to play in.
Lead Character Name: Janiece Rizzo “Rizzo”
Role: Memory Scientist- Recall specialist
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
This is a memory scientist who was traumatized by her own memory. So she studied and specialized in memory and recalling memories. She’s more interested in who you were than who you are.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
She’s emotionally all over the place. You can’t believe someone like her can exist with society.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
The opening scene when we see her at her most vulnerable and then shortly thereafter is kidnapped. Action that she must take in order to come out of her shell
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
She’s actually at the top of her field but has huge insecurities which she tries to suppress.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range.
From insecure and vulnerable to risk taking and leading.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
From the beginning she’s hiding her own insecurity to showing true security.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With her brother’s doppelganger who she pays a cat and mouse game.
With Frank the Maaster Sargeant who she has some attraction to but he hates her brother and is naturally extended to her.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Through the contrast of insecurity and vulnerability and pretending she’s strong.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
She never gives up.
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Valeriya’s Actor attractors!
My Vision: I am a masterful, ahead-of-the-game, and outside-the-box writer full of ideas and creative energy. My writing is fresh, impactful, iconic, beautiful, and effortless, and my projects deliver outstanding commercial and artistic success. I create a lot, it’s fun, quick, and easy. My whole life is that way.
I just love creating Actor Attractors for my characters!
What I learned from doing this assignment is…
– I was avoiding personal connection to the characters I create, but as we are in an outside-the-box experiment, I decided to lend them whatever emotional credibility fits their story. And I find the characters can only benefit from it.
– Special scene to showcase the acting talent we need.
– This lesson opened my eyes to the opportunities for achieving mastery.
BOO WHO HOO
Lead Character Name: IRENE
Role: Protagonist and Antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
She is alone against a horrible monster.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
This monster is her creation, in a sense, she fights against herself.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Talking to a monster. Tricking it, befriending it, fighting it, helping it, embracing it. Introducing the monster to her family. Having a drink with a monster. Crying with the monster. Finding a victim for it.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Reactive psyche, everything is a threat to her, or she is waiting for bad things to happen.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
Anxious introvert, mad fighter, plotting murderer, pensive artist, shameless seductress, socially awkward employee.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Her own fears take the life out of her. She tries to stop her fear from destroying everything.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
Her relationship with the monster. Her relationship with everyone else is dictated by the presence of the monster.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
She tells the truth but it’s always taken as a joke.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
Irene can find countless ways to avoid moving on with her life. She is ready to suffer for it, thinking it’s a lesser evil.
Lead Character Name: BOO
Role: Antagonist and Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Incredibly scary but empathetic monster.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
It scares the lights out of everyone because it’s created from fear, but it’s the one who helps to overcome all fears and find freedom.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Finding ways to communicate with humans. Bringing out their fears.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Playing with the mind of the main character.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
Furious to helpless, menacing to understanding.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
It inspires Irene to love life. The monster is a bunch of unrealized desires that turned bad.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With the main character, challenging her to live her life to the fullest.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
It can find interesting ways of non-verbal communication. It cries.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
How ugly and disgusting it is, yet we feel sorry for this poor creature.
7RDRD4
Lead Character Name: 7RDRD4
Role: Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
A robot that’s more human than most humans. Neither man nor woman.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
A robot living by human values.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Kills a man. Brings up a baby. Can fly. Participates in the game.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Falls to its death but manages to fly away.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
Hurt, scared, brave, inspired, proud, tender.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Trying to live up to his creator’s values. Believes in people.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With the human child it has to take care of.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Has different definitions of the same things depending on the version update.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
It can reprogram itself.
Lead Character Name: LO
Role: Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
A unique person brought up by AI.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
She is a human in the making — by a robot.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Fails the human test.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
(In her teens) breaking the pattern in the tune the robot plays — improvising.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
Angry, defensive, funny, caring, cruel, scared, conforming, brave leader.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
She can betray neither people nor robots.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With her robot.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Trying to mislead the robot. Jokes, irony, poetry.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
She can break human patterns, not only robots’.
Lead Character Name: BENEDICT
Role: Antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Charming, clever, well-meaning politician.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
The most charismatic human of them all. Persuasive.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Guide the discourse.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
He is not afraid of difficult conversations, raises important questions, ready to sacrifice his life for a good cause.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
Ice cold, charming, empathetic,
6. What subtext can the actor play?
He is a robot. With his dark plans for humanity.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With public opinion and other politicians. With 7RDRD4.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Creates the narrative for society drawing on big names, and achieves the goals he needs instead of those he declares.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
Manipulates people using their own ideas, which makes him powerful beyond measure.
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Bobby’s Actor Attractors!
MY VISION: A writing life that is mine to do with as I choose. Independently wealthy, always creatively engaged, sought after, and utterly fulfilled.
What I learned doing this assignment is… a reminder that part of the work (sometimes the most valuable) can be just typing in questions I have for myself. Not worrying about contradicting myself. In the midst of some great breakthroughs with my Antagonist, I think!
MOVIE: JASON VS THE ZOMBIES
ROLE: Jason (Protagonist)
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
A true zero to hero journey! And from homicidal to heroic – essentially the Antagonist becoming the Protagonist. Also, Jason will have a great self-deprecating sense of humor, and will have the audience on his side because of the abuse he’s taken.
What about this character makes them one of the most interesting in the story?
That zero to hero journey. Also, the most bumbling “serial-killer-wanna-be” in history.
What are the most interesting actions this Lead takes in the script?
His opening “hero fantasy” (Serial Killer as romantic lead, saving/getting the girl). The awful scenario of having to run to the bullies he wanted to kill, for protection.
The CONFRONTATION, when the truth comes out
Standing up for himself, taking charge and saving the day!How is the role introduced in a way that sells it to an actor?
The juxtaposition of his “hero dream” with his reality (dad waking him up with a punch in the balls: “late for work”) – instant sympathy for homicidal tendencies
What is the character’s emotional range?
From depressed, bitter, outcast; to furious, to terrified, to finally taking charge and showing true courage.
What subtext can the actor play?
The whole time he’s in the house with the bullies, we KNOW what he was there for. As he is mocked for being a wimp, the irony is not lost on Jason (or us) at all. Also, everything he does is out of love for VIOLA. Real rage is towards his father.
What are the most interesting relationships the character has?
Need to have a history with Viola, I think. Does Jason feel betrayed by her, for making new friends? (were they grade-school friends?) The dynamic with HACK needs to be powerful as well (is Jason the only one/first one to see what a true psychopath he is? Reminds him of his dad in some way? And Hack KNOWS Jason knows, and enjoys taunting him behind everyone’s back.
How is this character’s unique voice presented?
That opening dream, showing us his deepest desires. Could there be running daydreams throughout? Might be too campy… For sure though, Jason fetishizes/romanticizes Jason/Freddy/Michael Myers… (maybe Dexter?) – these are men of action and power!
What makes this character special and unique?
A serial killer terrified of the dark. And finding a way to overcome a lifetime of hatred/paranoia (everyone’s out to get him). KEY THEME THERE
ROLE: Hack (Antagonist)
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
The ultimate bully – one without conscience. A true sociopath, who LOVES to see emotion of any kind. Fascinated by it, as he has none himself.
What about this character makes them one of the most interesting in the story?
That “true evil” hiding in the midst of mundane “jerks”. Always grinning, never laughing. MENACE. The “zany” one everyone’s just a bit afraid of…
What are the most interesting actions this Lead takes in the script?
Pantsing Jason – then standing back, grinning, watching the chaos. Just… OFF. Similar actions towards his “friends” (pushing one in the empty grave in the cemetery). DECIDING to get “infected” by the zombies, to see what that’s like. Maintaining his personality, making him a truly terrifying “leader” of the undead.
How is the role introduced in a way that sells it to an actor?
The creator of Jason’s ultimate humiliation/breaking point. Something inhuman, unnoticed by others (does he know to “fake it” with them?)
What is the character’s emotional range?
Dead-eyed amusement. Boredom. Glee, as emotions run high. Blood-lust. Cunning. Like a boy burning ants with a magnifying glass, or loosing a swarm of bees in a closed room and watching through the window…
What subtext can the actor play?
He watches his “friends” like an alien playing with lower life forms. Pretend remorse; taunting Jason to increase his paranoia. Jealousy over Derek’s popularity (maybe that’s his one human trait/flaw – his cousin ALWAYS was the favorite)
What are the most interesting relationships the character has?
The jealousy towards Derek, who always makes excuses for him. Maybe some lust towards Viola (about violence and power, not sex). Jason is the ultimate play-toy for him – he makes sure to prod him when no one else can see. The standoff between the two of them will be a surrogate for Jason standing up to his father.
How is this character’s unique voice presented?
He lurks. He LUNGES into action, with no warning. That GRIN. Those eyes. Standing back, watching. Like a body-snatched person, aping the emotions he’s “supposed” to feel. “JK” – the bully’s mantra, I didn’t mean it bullshit.
What makes this character special and unique?
What kind of a guy would be scarier than ZOMBIES?? The dramatic version of Sean from “Sean of the Dead” (i.e., already the walking dead, but no one knows). Becoming a zombie is the truest expression of his soul.
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Module 3 Lesson 2
· Kevin Ash’s Actor Attractors!
· Vision: I will be living in paradise, writing prolifically at my leisure, respected and sought after for my interesting and thought provoking films.
What I learned from doing this assignment is I really love the character and think he’d be a great character to play (actually both leads would be) and the character profile is probably much closer to Lethal Weapon than Steel Magnolias for the main protagonist, but the other way around for the antagonist/father.
Lead Character Name:
EvanRole: (Protagonist or
Antagonist) Protagonist1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Wild child who constantly has fun in all he does, has lots of stunt opportunities, ultimately changes the world for better.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
He is the most interesting. He gets to drive fast, takes risks to help others without regard to self, he acts on impulse and instinct, always getting into trouble. Ultimately gets it all together just in time to self destruct.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Saving a friend by throwing himself at bullies, going on a joyride and destroying property and vehicle, playing hooky, skinny dipping in neighbor’s pool, climbing redwood trees.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Showing fight and ultimate action that leads to his death, trying to save a friend from making a terrible mistake.
5. What could be this character’s emotional raige?
From introverted, thoughtful soul, to wild man, acting out in public, being a loose cannon, to anger filled tirades, to happy go lucky. Manic.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Subtext is all over the place with this character and with his father. He wants to do right and be controlled but can’t stop himself, plays to whatever audience is there, but underneath is tortured.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
Girlfriend who gets pregnant, tells him it’s his, he tries to save her from an abusive household, his father who is also an alcoholic and tries to save his son, but ends up enabling him, leading him down the same paths. His family who adore him for the person they see on the outside, not seeing the tortured soul
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Through the contrast between his own outward joy and selfless acts, and his inner demons taking over his thoughts and actions.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
His charisma and wild antics contrasted with his inner demons and darkness driving him to selfless acts and crazy actions.
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Vision: To be a working, trusted screenwriter who supports herself by writing smart films that are produced and enjoyed, while also working on writing assignments for other industry professionals.
What I learned: Empowerment or not, this one was tough because I haven’t written any scenes yet …
Shelby Jordan
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Shelby, an English professor and author, will correct your grammar or pronunciation when talking to you – and she’s always right. But because she always wants to be right, she can have trouble making up her mind when it comes to the most important things.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
Her creativity is so strong that her characters spill off the pages and into real life.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
She takes on Cyrus to save her fiancé, Andrew, by writing herself into the story.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
She’s in the middle of a bridezilla meltdown, explaining to an innocent freshman from her class why the flowers at the front of the chapel are supposed to have white roses and green mini hydrangeas not green roses and white hydrangeas.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
Take charge, professorial, and strong on the outside, while also being fearful of looking imperfect and foolish.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Shelby hides a major lack of self-confidence with busy-work and ideas that ultimately stop her cold.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
She and Cyrus spar when he’s trying to take over, and she finally realizes her character, Rose, so carefree and a bit crass, is based on who she’s always wanted to be.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Shelby is really living in the wrong time and she’s not happy about it.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
She’s the epitome of an absent-minded professor.
Cyrus Landrake (antag)
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Cyrus constantly edits his looks and mannerisms as he tries to be the best villain he can be.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
He falls in love with himself as he tries out various villainous personas.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Cyrus’ vanity causes him to want to be at the center of the action. He strings Rose along in order to get her to comply with his plans to become the hero of Shelby’s novel. He tricks Andrew into stepping into the manuscript.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Cyrus refuses to abide by Shelby’s writing and he rewrites his story and convinces Rose to go along with him.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
Cyrus is a charming narcissist, bouncing between courteous (when it suits him) to murderous (when it suits him).
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Cyrus wants to be real – and he knows he never can be.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
He wants to somehow control his creator, Shelby, by manipulating her. Rose is devoted until she achieves what he can’t.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
He’s fascinated with reality, and jealous of humans.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
???
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Jenifer Stockdale’s Actor Attractors
Vision: I will write every day, producing not only a high volume but high quality scripts that will ultimately be made into popular movies and television shows.
Movie Title: SPLICED
What I learned doing this assignment is that it is not enough to have your character play “a range” of emotions, but there needs to be a spectrum within each emotion that is being played (I actually think I learned this in the previous lesson). I watched another movie with Sandra Bullock and she just got out of jail for killing a cop (didn’t even finish it, don’t remember the title) and she was stoic through most of the movie (except for the flashbacks) and I hated it! Just thinking about this character emotion thing really ruined that movie for me (also made me realize why there are certain movies I don’t like – when the the lead is emotionless all the time)
Lead Character Name: DACEY LOGAN
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role? Dacey is a complex character who is basically playing two roles at once (but the audience doesn’t know this). Although she is a nurse at the hospital (going through some intense issues) she is actually a patient in the bed of the hospital. There will be a lot of subtext for an actor to play and there are a lot of hints. This role will take skill and the actress will be able to show a range of ability.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? Dacey goes through a steady decline in mental stability. She sees blood stains, ghosts, has a number of delusions but is always trying to hold it together for her family. She medicates herself, not falling into “this is really happening camp”.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? Dacey decides to go with the belief that she is not crazy and that Tom is there to help her. She uses him to help her solve his murder – so in other words, she stops sitting back and allowing herself to be accused of something she knows she didn’t do and blaming it on a psychotic break.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? Dacey’s first moment of introduction is shrouded in mystery. She is at the nurses’ station and a voice whispers “Wake the fuck up” – she turns and sees her co-worker. Then they are thrust into action when a patient screams and they rush to the room where another patient has cut herself. Dacey is calm, cool, and collected – a juxtaposition to everyone else who is freaking out (including her colleague).
5. What is this character’s emotional range? Hadn’t really thought about this before, but I am going to ensure a major range of emotions. At the beginning before her delusions start to fall apart she can be happy, even crossing over to ecstatic when she is surprised by the party her husband throws for their anniversary. She can be afraid to terrified, upset to irate, etc.
6. What subtext can the actor play? This is huge – Dacey’s entire life is a delusion, yet there are delusions within the delusion. The subtext is really intense and the right actor, with the right skill will really be able to bring huge meaning to this role.
7. What’s the most interesting relationship this character has? I think Dacey’s relationship with Tom will be the most interesting. They will go from being nurse/patient where Dacey will be trying to help Tom to Dacey trying NOT to help Tom when he shows up uninvited at her house (2x both ALIVE and DEAD) to her going back to trying to help him find his killer.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented? Dacey’s voice will be unique as in she will be acting a lot (not the actress, the character…LOL). When the detectives are there and Tom is also there (dead) she will have to play off like she doesn’t see him (Tom can be a prankster when he is alive and can still be doing pranks when he is dead). She will also have to act like she doesn’t see blood – her son sits on the blood spot and plays with a toy – blood streaks everywhere – he doesn’t see it, she can’t react.
9. What makes this character special and unique? Dacey is unique because she is not really doing what she appears to be doing – she is “splicing” what she sees and hears to make a life for herself (albeit a fake life).
10. (Fill in a scene that shows the character fulfilling much of the Actor Attractor model.)
After Dacey’s husband takes the kids (tricks her) she goes to church and the priest is talking but says something weird (something someone would be saying in the hospital). Dacey looks up panicky – people from the hospital are on the altar – then garland snakes down from the ceiling and wraps around their necks, yanking them upwards – blood begins to leak from their eyes, ears, etc. as well as from the statues. Around her the congregation sings Ava Maria (which is a serious contradiction to what Dacey is seeing as it is so beautiful). Dacey looks down and there are waves of blood, lapping against her legs. Dacey has to hold in her panic as she knows what she is seeing isn’t real – yet it feels so real.
Lead Character Name: TOM
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role? Tom gets to play crazy and then dead! He is a prankster in life and in death.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? Tom is paranoid schizophrenic so he is unpredictable and fun (as only a person in a movie with this disease would be…) Then he is dead and walking around Dacey’s house.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? When Dacey figures out that he is not there he helps her discover who murdered him.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? Tom is at a group meeting where he is talking about his impending discharge. He is being heckled by the other patients who get him going and loses it- having to be removed from meeting
5. What is this character’s emotional range? While in the hospital Tom is afraid, but since he is getting discharged he has to walk the edge of being paranoid. When he shows up at Dacey’s he is in full blown paranoia, but he is forced to tone it down when she threatens to call the hospital to send him back. Tom is also always pulling pranks, so he displays a childlike joy when he gets someone with a prank.
6. What subtext can the actor play? Tom has to tone down his paranoia but it is always there under the surface.
7. What’s the most interesting relationship this character has? Tom’s most interesting relationship is with Dacey. He needs her help and then she needs his help.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented? Tom is clinically insane, so he can be paranoid, whiney, silly. He likes to prank people and hopes that he is pleasing people. He is always looking for approval from others (was that good? Did you like that? Was it funny?)
9. What makes this character special and unique? Tom is dead for most of the movie.
10. (Fill in a scene that shows the character fulfilling much of the Actor Attractor model.)
In the scene where Tom is introduced there is a support group meeting that Dacey is helping a new employee run. Dacey pushes a patient in a supine stander into the room and then goes to Tom and asks him if he wants to talk about his discharge. He agrees but Christina heckles him and gets him upset. He starts with talking about leaving and being scared, but having to reign in any paranoia (subtext) as they won’t let him leave if he is paranoid – but when Christina tells him there are people out there who want to kill him he gets a little wonky and this increases until he is in a full blown panic attack.
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Peter’s Actor Attractors!
Vision: My scripts are so good they could be published on their own and William Goldman wants to write the introduction.
What I’ve learned from doing this assignment is that simply responding to these prompts without too much afterthought has given me some genuine insights into who these characters might be.
DAVID VILLERS / protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? There is great action, physical prowess, and a chance to save the world.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? He is never quite sure what is going on behind the scenes but takes action anyway.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? He takes on a whole group of fighters, each with their own martial arts style… and wins.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? A fighting intensive opening scene, maybe an unsanctioned “Fight Club” type scene, (that leads to his removal from Force Recon).
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? He is decisive, action-oriented, but with a soft spot for the vulnerable. He has a tender nature, quotes Basho, and loves animals.
6. What subtext can the actor play? He’s got a serious grudge against the bureaucratic takeover that’s behind his loss of military honors. He also has never quite been able to forget the life he might have had w/ Jennifer.
7. What are the most interesting relationships this character can have? He still has a chance w/ Jennifer Hamm, a high-ranking govt. official whose safety he’s responsible for; plus, his old army buddy, Brian Chiang, who has a deep connection to the local culture and political upheaval.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? He is most eloquent with his love of nature and Japanese poetry.
9. What could make this character special and unique? He is a warrior in the old-fashioned sense; he respects the sanctity of all living things, and the traditions of the Japanese samurai. In some ways, he has become a stateless samurai.
JENNIFER HAMM / antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? She is a badass female authority figure with the fate of the world in her hands.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? More than any man, she is able to project strength and confidence at the peace talks.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? She alone appreciates and can relate to the protagonist; she knows how to push his buttons.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? At a major PR stunt in the Rose Garden, she steps up to deliver a message that leaves the WH and Joint Chiefs in the dust.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? Light and clear on the outside, deep down she is mysterious and calculating She is the smartest person in the room, and has a lively, witty, personality.
6. What subtext can the actor play? She has never received full credit or recognition for her contributions to the WH; she has secret ambitions to be the first female president.
7. What are the most interesting relationships this character can have? She and the protagonist have a lot in common, but with opposite political views; there is also a lot of friction w/ the 2<sup>nd</sup> lead because of a secretive past relationship.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? She is charming, witty, and intelligent; the smartest person in the room.
9. What could make this character special and unique? She wants to redefine what it means to be a powerful woman; she is a world-class equestrian and a chess master, and solves all the Sunday NYT puzzles in pen.
BRIAN CHIANG / second lead
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? He is a rogue, loyal to the protagonist, and also in some ways to the antagonist. He is a critical conduit to local culture and politics.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? He has many secrets but instills trust through his own code of honor.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? He intercedes in high-stakes moments.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? He parlays with an unruly mob, and liaisons with a violent warlord.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? Angry, steadfast, honorable, loving.
6. What subtext can the actor play? Still carries a torch for Jennifer. Never accepted by the military command as an equal.
7. What are the most interesting relationships this character can have? Complex relationship with the protagonist; they are brothers in arms, but also rivals in love. Never able to express his true feelings for the antagonist, but willing to sacrifice his life for her.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? He has an extreme commitment to the cause, a radical passion for justice and the right way of doing things.
9. What could make this character special and unique? He is an unheralded genius, a deep thinker, inspiring, and a foremost authority on radical socialist causes.
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Edward Brown actor attractors
need to make great roles toget great actors
CREATOR
1. An active Creator that explains and prompts life and evolution is huge role
Plus Creator is fun mischievous
Trying to save planet from its free will bipeds
Favors faithful, but allows JOB testing
2. He initiates action and somewhat controls it
3. Entrance, controlling Saints, comments, wind, allows Saints to pro active roles
4. All plead for Creator who is teaching other failed planet
5. Humor, disgust, anger
6. Secret Russia vs America set up, Tolya as videographer, getting Tolya a father,
Wound: allowing Jesus to be crucified
7. Sophia, Spirit, Jesus
8. Demonstration of power per saints, test subjects, experiment
9. Knows all but can not control it
GEORGE
1 mischievous playful male lover who is adaptive, need to make him a role model for:
Male point of view, good father material, teach Tanya’s son Tolya
Like Tanya wants Forever Romance
2. he is proactive lover who makes trip to Tanya’s Siberia
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the script?
3. tells Anna off cites Dreams, tricks Tanya into recognizing him as PhD in romance, makes transformation of messy to neat, fat to fit per Tanya’s coaching
4. How was the role introduced in a way that sold it to an actor?
4. mocks going to Moscow, goes, creative negotiating, ANNA
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
5. really stoked won mac, depressed Anna left, vamped but recovers
6. What subtext did the actor play?
6. conceals his other relationships, how good father, how fought matedor, Alice
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character had?
7. Tanya, Vince, Little Voice, Alice
8. How was this character’s unique voice presented?
7. prayer, adaptive: valentine, kiss new year, flyer, need poem
9. What made this character special and unique?
9. adaptive, almost a beyonder, prayer, resists being VAMPED, capable of growth, helps structured Tanya to go Out-of-Box
Tanya
. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
“Love interest” Sexy vamp who rules in male world by discipline and listening
Who wants forever romance
Trying to beyond class room and dance to be administrator
22. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
Goes from go getter to go giver :
Proposes deal: Moscow, tourist, Siberia with sailing on Ob Sea and low drag or back to Detroit
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the script?
Compromises for Moscow, qualifies George, dilemma , go to Mac
3. tells Anna off cites Dreams, tricks Tanya into recognizing him as PhD in romance, makes transformation of messy to neat
4. How was the role introduced in a way that sold it to an actor?
Spurns suitor, rejects Billionaire, will explore slob roofer from Detroit
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
Despair, glee, calculating,
6. What subtext did the actor play?
Knows about George but sees if he honestly relates about past GFs and misadventures
Plans to vamp him to Siberia
?
6. conceals his other relationships,
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character had?
Son George ballet girls father ex
8 unique voice presented by barginingi, son, Boris , prayer
9. What made this character special and unique?
Vamp that prominent men seek , but turns to slob roofer but romantic from Detroit
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Renee Brown’s Actor Attractors for Starcross Chances
“My scripts are the cream that rises to the top: I am an A-list screenwriter.”
What I learned: These questions draw out characters that have deep waters.
Movie Title: STARCROSS CHANCES
Lead Character Name: Alley
Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role? A woman who has wasted a decade of her life over a misunderstanding, takes back control of her life and redefines her idea of love.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? Totally relatable. We all have stories we made up in our heads about things that happened. What if we found out that everything that we thought about it was wrong?
What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? Alley abandons her creative passion because of a perceived insult.
How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? Singing an amazing song on acoustic guitar, giving the performance of her life… alone in her bedroom.
What is this character’s emotional range? Passionate, heartbroken, Vulnerable, Resentful, Confused, Curious, Bittersweet, Sadness, Embarrassment, Disconnection, Insecurity, Self-righteousness, Love, Forgiveness. Humility.
What subtext can the actor play? Disappointment in her life not lived. Longing for lost love.
What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? With her ex-lover CJ and with her long-lost Grandmother.
How is this character’s unique voice presented? Through flashbacks where we see the passionate version of herself and through her present-day pent-up passion.
What makes this character special and unique? Her longing, self-denial and sudden willingness to abandon her ideas about the past in order to go for the second chance at love.
Lead Character Name: CJ
Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role? A man who ruined his life with a series of reckless, heartbroken choices years ago, but finds the courage to reignite love with the very woman who broke his heart.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? A talented jack of all trades type who hides away in a small town that time forgot but has big dreams for himself.
What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? Dives into the river to retrieve the necklace Ally threw in years ago.
How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? A rebel type selling handmade jewelry off the back of his motorcycle at the local market and falling for a young Alley on first sight.
What is this character’s emotional range? Heartbroken, Vulnerable, Curious, Bittersweet, Regret, Sarcasm, Anguish, Despair, Shame, Grief, Self-righteousness, Defensiveness, Anger, Love, Forgiveness. Humility.
What subtext can the actor play? Resentment for a life ruined. Contentment with invisibility. Longing for lost love.
What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? With his ex-lover Alley and his best bud Charlie.
How is this character’s unique voice presented? Through flashbacks where we see the tragic accident that occurred after their breakup and through the defensive and vulnerable attempt to reconnect.
What makes this character special and unique? His sudden willingness to open his heart to the second chance at love. And his willingness to make a grand gesture.
Lead Character Name: Lillian
Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role? A war bride who brings a magical stone to America that gives second chances to star-crossed lovers.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? Leaves her home to find a better life but then abandons her family to chase her dream that was never realized.
What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? Tells her long lost granddaughter (Alley) that the love stories she told her as a child were made up.
How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? Young Lillian: A war bride sitting alone on her suitcase at the dock, holding a mystical stone, waiting for her soldier to pick her up. Elder Lillian: a feisty 90’s something who checked herself into a rest home.
What is this character’s emotional range? Avoiding, Envy, Resentment, Bittersweet, Nostalgic, Irony, Pity, Comparative suffering, Humiliation, Fitting in, Belonging, Loneliness, Betrayal, Foreboding Joy, Relief, Pride, Love.
What subtext can the actor play? Willful Disconnection from all previous agreements. Longing for lost love.
What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? Her past with her GI husband, and with Alley both past and present.
How is this character’s unique voice presented? Through flashbacks where we see her struggles as a young war bride and how she told Alley her love stories.
What makes this character special and unique? The paradox between: her love for Alley and her unbridled selfishness and lack of regret.
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Linda Anderson’s Actor Attractors!
Vision for your success from this program:
Audiences around the world view and love my meaningful screenplays—one of the most satisfying and energizing accomplishments of my life.
What I learned from doing this assignment is it’s hard to develop a dog as a lead-character antagonist because although this dog is unique and complex, dogs are honest, without a lot of subtext.
Lead Character Name: Allen
Role: (Protagonist or Antagonist) Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? A man who’s been in a profession where he’s had to repeatedly face death and survive, is left with emotional wounds from his experiences. Now he’s in a brutal battle for survival where his crucial support and responsibility come from a dog who is as emotionally damaged as he is.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? He’s a complex mix of intelligence, creativity, masculinity, and a strong will to survive even through the worst situations.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? He and his wife adopt an abandoned dog who is emotionally damaged and makes their life hell. Then he finds out he may wind up as disabled as his father, who had a major stroke, or die in the attempt to save his life.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? Showing him as a cop in a standoff with a drug-crazed man who aims a gun at Allen’s head.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? With a tender, sensitive, PTSD-type personality, he goes from mainly relying on survival instincts to dealing emotionally and spiritually with fears and wounds that hide beneath the surface of his life’s decisions.
6. What subtext can the actor play? Beneath high capability in his professional life, lies a man who has experienced maximum fear and stress since an abusive childhood and while doing police work as an inner city cop. The fear and anger come out unexpectedly and in ways that rock his family life and the goals he’s set for his life.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? Relationship with a dog who has many of his same issues and relationship with the wife who is also co-author of the series of books he writes about animals.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? He’s a one-word answer kind of guy when it comes to expressing or being in touch with his true emotions.
9. What could make this character special and unique? The spiritual nature of his relationship with the dog, Leaf, transcends what usually comes through in stories that involve animals. Allen’s respect and compassion for Leaf, as an individual with his own thoughts, feelings, and fears will be relatable to anyone who has had that one special dog who stole their heart.
Lead Character Name: Leaf
Role: (Protagonist or Antagonist) Antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? This is a dual journey of a man who must face the biggest challenges of his life and an abandoned dog who must heal or risk being euthanized.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? He’s a dog who alternates between cute and lovable and a holy terror.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? Leaf responds to Allen’s spiritual practices in ways not usually associated with a human-dog relationship. At night, when he’s most terrified and howling, Allen holds Leaf on his lap, with the dog’s head against his heart, while Allen chants an ancient mantra of love that comforts both of them.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? (in this case, the “Actor” will be a professional animal trainer) It’s hard to train a dog to be naughty on cue but with the right dog, amazing displays of animal consciousness occur in filming scenes.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? Leaf transforms from a fearful, confused, distrustful dog to a companion who senses Allen needs him as a healing partner.
6. What subtext can the actor play? The trainer will need to get the dog to misbehave while continuing to be needy and fun. Leaf needs a lot of attention.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? Leaf grows to love and trust Allen but it’s a journey that has all the attributes of an antagonist except they come out of his fear, not out of hatred.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? He barks, literally! Possibly, there’ll be a voiceover that tells what he’s thinking. During a scene with an animal communicator, he tells her in his simple way about having been “left.”
9. What could make this character special and unique? Dogs as damaged as Leaf often can’t adjust to life in a family or to ever trust humans again. Because of the emotional similarities that shape both man and dog, they pull together to help each other survive and heal.
Lead Character Name: Linda
Role: (Protagonist or Antagonist) Support Lead Characters
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? Linda hasn’t been fully in touch with the effects of Allen’s PTSD because he’s kept so much of his cop experiences to himself, hidden and buried. Now she must help him through the most brutal challenge where she’s with him facing death with the emotional issues coming to the surface.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? Linda is Allen’s wife and co-author of the animal books they write together. She’s the one who encourages him to take a second look at Leaf, the cute cocker spaniel, in the animal shelter.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? She doesn’t want to face the realities head-on but despite her fears, she supports Allen as he does all the practical tasks to prepare for the possibility of not surviving.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? Linda and Allen walk around the animal shelter, just to look, when she realizes that the only thing that will comfort Allen after losing their yellow Lab of 12 years, will be to adopt a dog who needs a home.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? She’s independent in most ways but dependent on Allen to take care of the couple’s bills and finances. During the lead-up and aftermath of Allen’s brain surgery, she has to step up to the plate and become confident.
6. What subtext can the actor play? Even though she’s terrified, Linda has to stay strong and flexible as she copes with Allen’s PTSD, new health dangers, impending surgeries, and their emotionally disturbed new dog.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? Allen and Leaf are her most interesting relationships, but she’s besties with a Black female nurse who helps her through this highly stressful, high-stakes situation with Allen.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? Linda is a take-charge person who clearly states her needs, wants, and opinions—even when not being asked.
9. What could make this character special and unique? The shared love between Allen and Linda has spilled over into their collaboration as authors and mutual but different ways of relating to Leaf.
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WIM: Module 3 – Lead Characters That Attract Actors
My Vision: Develop successful screenplay writing method which yields completed screenplays viewed as PRO/story-telling level quality, sales (compensation), production, more screenwriting opportunities… Rinse and repeat- many times over.
What I learned with this assignment: Effort put forth to create well-rounded Lead characters could attract better quality actors to each role.
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ACTOR ATTRACTORS
Lead Character 1 – Name: Vince Guaraldi
Role: (Protagonist)
1.) What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? GUARALDI was an innovative, groundbreaking Jazz Musician who’s Artistic contributions were new in his day. His music continues to thrill old and new audiences alike, year after year.
2.) What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? Vince is virtually in every scene of the film, so the uphill, arc-of-change will be remarkably visible.
3.) What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? Vince’s partnering with Brazilian (Black) Guitar legend Bola Sete for an Album and a TV special, Vince’s walking-in-the-streets-support of the civil rights movement.
4.) How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? In the Film’s ‘present’ arena of the mid 1960’s, we meet Jazz musician VINCE GUARALDI, very nearly at the top of his game playing to a packed club -but not yet discovered nor having yet created his PEANUTS music legacy. The audience enraptured with his playing; clearly this guy is going to be a STAR… lets see how he got here -and where he’s going.
5.) What could be this character’s emotional range? Vince is sensitive, intense, somewhat prone to bursts of anger, funny, determined, was intolerant of people talking while he played in the clubs. One night Vince even threw an ashtray at a table of people carrying on a bit too much for his liking. The glass ashtray exploded against the wall behind the patrons. They were quiet after that happened.
6.) What subtext can the actor play? Competitive agendas play out constantly. Vince is a guy who wants certain things to be a certain way -and he’s unafraid to assert himself when necessary to make it happen.
7.) What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? With his biological father, Girlfriend Gretchen Katamay (was with Vince longer than wife Shirley).
8.) How will this character’s unique voice be presented? Vince is curious, well read -aware of the world around him, does not suffer fools.
9.) What could make this character special and unique? This is a bio-pic. His unusual (signature) mustache, that he drove a Porsche sports car at a time when most Americans had never even heard of the brand. Having an ‘on-the-side’ girlfriend whom he met (this relationship out-ladted his marriage) at a Jazz Club between sets; plenty of information to highlight why Guaraldi was very special and a unique role for an A-list actor.
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ACTOR ATTRACTORS
Lead Character 2 – Name: Vincent Dellaglio (VG’s biological father).
Role: (Antagonist)
1.) What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? Vince’s biological Father was selfish, vindictive and arrogant -by all accounts not a great man. He never had his son’s best interests in mind. Yet he believed he was in the ‘right’ in trying to influence his son to be just like him.
2.) What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? Huge personality, larger than life- forgetful of his duties as a husband and father, doing everything best for himself ahead of his son or soon to be ex-wife.
3.)What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? Later for Vinces birthday party, coming home drunk from work, crushing the hopes of Mother Carmella or Cousins Joe & Maurice ‘Muzzy’ Marcellino (professional musicians) as they watched Vince ‘take-to’ the piano
4.) How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? Arriving late, drunk & disorderly to young Vince’s birthday party -and giving Vince a dirty bricklayer’s trowel as a present.
5.) What could be this character’s emotional range? Cold, distant, without empathy… really an asshole of a man- who is oblivious to his shortcomings for the first half of the story.
6.) What subtext can the actor play? Pretentiousness about his expertise as a bricklayer, believes his blue-collar job defines him as a man; any work where your not building something of a physical nature- just not that important.
7.) What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? With biological Son Vince and his (Ex) wife Carmella, both of whom he treats in a terrible way throughout the story.
8.) How will this character’s unique voice be presented? In a Narcissistic, abusive, tyrannizing manner. No ability to recognize his own faults.
9.) What could make this character special and unique? Self-centered as Vincent Dellaglio is, he still possesses a sense of humor which he demonstrates in the most inopportune moments.
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ACTOR ATTRACTORS
Lead Character 3 – Name: Carmella
Role: (Protagonist)
1.)What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? Carmella is a tough broad, takes no guff, really protects Vince and opens worlds for him to learn, be inspired and one day become a legendary Jazz pianist. Carmella (along with her Mother ‘Biddy’) raise Vince virtually on her (their) own. A herculean task for a female, single parent in the early part of the 20th century.
2.) What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? Carmella is smart, funny, attractive, laughs out loud, can tell joke -and plays piano. She is a big inspiration for young Vince.
3.) What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? She is defiant with ex-husband Vincent, difficult with the Catholic Church (scandalous divorce), rigid about the kind of man she must meet.
4.) How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? She is a dynamo; really gets things done. Very caring of others -unless she gets burned.
5.) What could be this character’s emotional range? Combative with ex-husband over Vince’s time, romantic at heart- but being divorced and a having a young son makes her a commodity many will avoid.
6.) What subtext can the actor play? While she is looking for a partner- its clear Vince takes priority over everyone, everything.
7.) What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? With her Son Vince.
8.) How will this character’s unique voice be presented? Unflinching: She is all about Vince and his future.
9.) What could make this character special and unique? If she were to haul-off and punch her ex-husband in the mouth. Tell her Catholic Grade School / Church Priest (and the Nuns) what she really thinks of them as she leaves the Parish property (excommunicated for getting a divorce) for the very last time, while dragging teary-eyed young Vince by the hand.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Kevin Patrick Goulet.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Kevin Patrick Goulet.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Kevin Patrick Goulet.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Kevin Patrick Goulet.
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Joe McGloin’s Actor Attractors
Vision: I am a talented, highly regarded, efficient, relaxed, happy, WGA screenwriter
What I learned from doing this assignment is that I need to make my characters more interesting than I had been imagining, and yet I already know a lot about them without realizing it as the answers to these questions flowed pretty well. And I had fun.
Max (Protagonist)
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
An angel who explores the true nature of love while guardian his charge
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
He’s an angel struggling with his role. He falls in love with his charge.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Learn what true love is and does. Outsmart bad guys. Challenge his superiors.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
He’s a smug, heavy-handed know-it-all angel with authority issues.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
Arrogant to humble to passionate
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Pretend to be a political flunkie while guiding, protecting and falling in love with a future president
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
A superior who doubts Max’s abilities, the woman he is to guard that he falls in love with, a scumbag politician intent on ruining his charge’s career.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
through an angel’s perspective of what it means to be a guardian angel
9. What could make this character special and unique?
He is an angel that falls in love with his human charge. He learns what true love really is and does.
Jane (Protagonist)
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
A woman who shakes up politics and becomes president.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
She goes against the grain of dirty politics and wins. She falls in love with an angel
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Resist dirty politics. Forge her way to the top against all odds. Fall in love after resisting it as a sign of weakness.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
A female politician in a mostly male environment who is determined to remain honest and principled and who is sensitive to spiritual forces around her
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
Independent and emotionally detached to passionate about her work and finally about her relationship
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Save humanity through becoming President of the US surrounded by noble, honest servants of humanity
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
Her guardian angel, her scumbag superior, her constituencies,
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
As a lone honest voice in the wilderness of politics that grows in strength to a roar
9. What could make this character special and unique?
Her success in honest politics at the international level
Clarence (Antagonist)
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
It reflects (is?) the character in It’s a Wonderful Life and he supervises angels and has a fair amount of clout in Heaven
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
An angel who supervises other angels is the antagonist
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Doubt Max at every turn. Appear with knowledge of crucial heavenly events. Help orchestrate and then announce a major development in the relationship between angels and humans when all seems about to be lost.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
As Max’s new superior who refuses to respond to questions as to whether or not he is THAT Clarence, and who promises to be a thorn in Max’s side, and who is well versed in heavenly affairs to which most angels have no access.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
Irritable to smugly superior, strict to permissive, discouraging to supportive, cold to engaging
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Has an apparent knowledge base far beyond what the guardian angels have and is aware of what goes on in whole universe and the afterlife. Pretty much omniscient.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With Max, with his own solution-searching peers, with humanity on the brink of self-destruction
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
As a spokes-angel for Heaven in an angel’s body.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
An angel who isn’t always kind and loving but who is tuned in to the workings of the afterlife and has some say in the decisions there.
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Tom’s Actor Attractors
When I discuss projects with producers, I see myself coming up with excellent alternatives quickly.
Doing this assignment, I learned it’s fun to freewheel thoughts as I write. It really improves my work.
BEGIN AGAIN Drama – Thriller
Protagonist – John
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
John can’t wait to exit Afghanistan the next day. Abruptly, Mel is severely wounded and he accompanies him to a US hospital in Germany. At the end he goes into combat mode once again to save Mel and stop Mel’s father from killing everyone in their town.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
John spots bleeding the sensors don’t see because Mel has a device implant which John removes and saves Mel’s life. Where did he get that?
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Because they share a rare blood type, John donates blood for Mel’s multiple surgeries.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
He gets Mel away from an Army doctor who’s crazy to a good doc who wants to help his patients. [It’s a preview of his saving Mel from Phillip].
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
John starts out quiet, he’s not a born leader. By the end, John leads an assault on Phillip and his army to stop the bloodshed.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
He must undermine Phillip to save Mel because he swore to Phillip he’d safeguard his son, Mel.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
The one with his twin sister who Phillip pretended had died when John was born.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
He’s passionate about getting to the bottom of the mystery of Phillip and BioPulse.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
He finds profound purpose in being needed. He’s no longer a loner hiding in the library.
Antagonist – Phillip
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Phillip’s cultured manners hide that he kills anyone who gets in his way. He underestimates John who saves everyone from his murderous ways.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
Phillip doesn’t hesitate to torture and kill anyone who wants to stop him.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Phillip uses his surgical skills to torture people to death. He’s a madman who manipulates everyone in his life. Including his son Mel.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
To kill a hospitalized patient, he waits till everyone leaves and unplugs life support. After the patient dies, he plugs it back in.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
He’s mild mannered while he’s secretly angry and plots how to kill anyone in his way.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Phillip dismisses John as a naive school pal of his son until it’s too late.
7. What’s the most interesting relationship this character can have?
Phillip has an unusual relationship with his deceased wife. He has sex with female life size sex doll and talks to her as if she’s his wife.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
He speaks in robotic monotones. Except when he is angered.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
He keeps remembering his religious youth. Finally feels guilty enough to try to reform but it’s too late.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Tom Wilson.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Tom Wilson.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Tom Wilson.
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This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by Tom Wilson.
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[WIM] Caroline’s Actor Attractors!
My Vision: I will perfect my process of writing great scripts and be recognized by the industry as good at what I do and have successful movies produced.
What I learned: This was a bit difficult, but as the directions say, it is just a first draft.
ACTOR ATTRACTOR TEMPLATE
Lead Character Name: Callahan Terry
Role: (Protagonist or Antagonist) Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? James Bond in America
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? His character is iconic
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? Chases, gun fights, battles of wits
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? Introduce him as a debonair gentleman who flips on a dime and becomes a gun wielding, judo chopping hero.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? Empathy, sadness, rage
6. What subtext can the actor play? A quiet killer when needed
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? With his co-workers, his friend and his friend’s wife
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? As a British Secret Service agent, accent and all
9. What could make this character special and unique? He seems like a paper pusher but is really is an action hero.
ACTOR ATTRACTOR TEMPLATE
Lead Character Name: Aaron Copley
Role: (Protagonist or Antagonist): Antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? The CIA agent who turns on his friend.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? You trust him and he seems like a good guy,
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? Betraying his friend
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? In a flashback when Callahan’s wife is killed.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? Arrogant, devious, smart aleck
6. What subtext can the actor play? Wounded, afraid
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? Betraying his wife, betraying his friend, betraying his government
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? Slightly nerdy maybe?
9. What could make this character special and unique? You don’t expect him to be duplicitous.
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Aaron’s Actor Attractors!
VISION: I will work harder than anyone to be an incredible writer who the industry seeks for projects that have consistent commercial success.
What I learned doing this assignment is there is a lot of interesting depth to my main characters that will come through on the page / screen and will be exciting to watch.
ACTOR ATTRACTORS
Lead Character Name:
Role: protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to wan to be known for it?
– They would be known as the great vigilante, a powerful and disadvantaged under dog who fights the system and the “man” and wins.
2. What makes this character on of the most interesting characters in your story?
– HowL he’s still in prison of cast & culture even when he’s out of jail and he out smarts the corrupt Sheriff’s department by ‘going along in order to bring them down’… and in the end, he nails them!
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
– Setting up deputies, using their same tactics, kidnapping, torturing, coercing with violence and threat of exposure. Driving/pushing to find black victims.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
– Helping some brothers at a crash scene, he pries open the trunk and exposes tons of dope. He helps them hide it and a gun on one of the dudes, from white cop.
– Leaving jail, so calm, almost zen -biggest skinhead ever gets in his last digs/punches… Pro lights this guy up in a ferocious series of strikes, burns him, fries his arm in an oil vat, then knocks him out. He looks at other skinhead to see if any takers – they all look on in complete respect.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
– Zen to fast hustle, to care taker, to SAVAGE.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
– That he’s going along to get along, but is really, actively setting them up. Politeness with distain.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
– The weakest man with the most power in the town.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
– He plays the underling, the subservient, submissive role flawlessly without any reservations or molestation – then viciously and violently destroys enemies.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
– His persistence and will power, he comes back from the dead to finish the deal. He is both the savior and the martyr at the same time.
Lead Character Name:
Role: Antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to wan to be known for it?
– Would get to play the ultimate embodiment of all that’s wrong with corrupt white men.
2. What makes this character on of the most interesting characters in your story?
– Because he’s an all powerful, all knowing F.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
– Unspoken, implied leverage / blackmail / threats to get his way with whoever.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
– Dinner with important couple – he dominates / eviscerates guy with wife, in front of him… & she kind of digs it. This is a powerplay to get something else that he wants.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
– Stone cold / dead eye, alpha commander, predator, charming, a fury unmatched (his “switch” blows you away).
6. What subtext can the actor play?
– Everything is okay, golden, will slit your throat, collected when losing battle, lulls others into a false safety when in absolute danger!
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
– With the protagonist – the pro is ruining his life very effectively.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
– Keeping it light when he is imposing heavy / serious consequences – he’s elegant about it. He is were the buck stops.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
– He is both the over the top gentleman and the most vicious savage ever, at the same time.
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Jaelle’s Subtext Characters
My Vision: I’m an award-winning screenwriter that is sought after by people in the industry, who creates scripts that change lives to bring a new vision to the world, and I’m richly rewarded.
What I learned: give the lead character a wide range of behaviors and personality traits.
Lead Character Name: Madame Helena Blavatsky
Role: Protagonist
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? Blavatsky is a highly controversial person in real life that wrote about women’s rights and psychic ability.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? She’s tough, very intelligent, hard to know what she’s thinking, to being obsessive, controlling, and aloof.
What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? Bring Masters back to life. Fight for her status.
How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? She does a seance and in enters two of her Masters, who stun those in the audience.
What could be this character’s emotional range: from gentle, kind, loving, giving to tearing limbs off and beating people about the head with the limb.
What subtext can the actor play? Acting like she doesn’t care that she’s being called a fake.
What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? The one with the teenager that gets embodied by Maitreya.
How will this character’s unique voice be presented? She brash, almost tactless, fearless, yet is a marshmallow when she sees the harshness of humanity.
What could make this character special and unique? Ahead of her time; cigar smoking lady that doesn’t take anything from men. -
LESSON 2
Amechi’s Actor Attractors!
MY VISION
I am going to be in the top 1% of action/comedy writers in the industry who writes major action films.Lead Character Name: KANAAN
Role: Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
He is a man obsessed with a superhero who gets the chance to make the superhero his friend and become his sidekick.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
He’s a manipulator who uses manipulation techniques to try and make people do the right thing.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Manipulating Blackout
Talking his way into a job he shouldn’t get
His covert battle with Rhapsody
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
He’s paid to be a victim in a self-defense class.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
Scared to angry, weak and helpless to confident and dangerous, sad to exhilarated.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
That he’s just trying to help, that he’s in it for the right reasons,
He’s always a hero in his own mind, even when he seems to be a victim.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With Blackout – They go from strangers to people who help each other, to people who rely on each other.
With Rhapsody – Who wants to get rid of him so she can keep Blackout all to herself.
With Mars (the Butler) – who is getting old and decides to help groom Kanaan to be his replacement.
With his Mother – A cop who wants Kanaan to give up his dangerous dreams and return home.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
He’s tired of the city being dangerous and is one of the few people who are actively doing something about it.
9. What could make this character special and unique?His manipulation techniques, his strong desire to be liked and to see justice come for people.
Lead Character Name: Rhapsody
Role: Antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
A kick ass superhero
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
She’s very protective of Blackout and very suspicious of Kanaan.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
She goes to Kanaan’s parents house and has dinner with his family.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
She beat up a gang of thugs on a street and then enters a room that is filled with items related to Blackout.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
She is calm, Kanaan makes her angry, confident, determined,
6. What subtext can the actor play?
That she’s trying to help people when she’s punishing them. She’s fighting to keep the status quo.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With Kanaan – She is the one person who can see right through him for what he is.
With Blackout – A mentor, and someone she loves and respects.
With Mars – He’s a father figure who pushes her to do good and to be a better hero.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
She is a sidekick who is happy with her place and actively fighting anyone who tries to change it.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
She’s a hero but has some bad intentions to protect her power and status.Lead Character Name: Blackout
Role: Triangle Character
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
A powerful superhero who wants to be loved and fights for his city.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
He is a loner but is looking for community.
He demands obedience.3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Taking on the mayor.
Killing Rhapsody
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
He saves Kanaan from an attack. He’s a powerful superhero who strikes fear into his enemies.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
Calm even when he’s being violent. Sad and emotionally fragile. Feels compassion for those he has to fight who have nothing.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Controls and manipulates people into praising him. Wants to be worshipped for his sacrifices.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With Kanaan – He likes the way Kanaan sees the world and the perspective Kanaan has on things.
With Rhapsody – He’s a stern big brother who is trying to keep her under control.
With Mars – His father figure, who works to meet all of his needs.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
He’s obsessed with justice and doing the right thing in every aspect of his life.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
Wants to honor his parents and ancestors by doing what is right in all situations. Gets broken up when he fails or someone is hurt because of him. -
Jack P’s Actor Attractors
MY VISION: I will do whatever it takes to write a script that is recognized by the industry and leads to multiple successful movies.
WHAT I LEARNED: My lead characters are interesting and have the potential to attract quality actors.
ASSIGNMENT
LEAD CHARACTER NAME: Jay
ROLE: Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
This is a challenging role for an older male actor as he is confronting life-long beliefs, prejudices, and relational issues, then is compelled to change everything for the unsuspected love of a woman.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
He is an older man who meets a younger woman and falls in love, realizes they are soul mates from previous/multidimensional relationships, then navigates his psychological and spiritual evolution in a foreign culture.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
1 – Saving his leading lady from a drunken attacker; 2 – going on a wild road trip with his leading lady; 3 – being struck by lightning and dying; 4- having a near death experience and an epiphany that his soul is immortal and learning about his spiritual relationships with other characters in the story …
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
A May-December romance with a young lesbian woman that is tumultuous, erotic, and transformational, and that takes him on an evolutionary journey through his psyche and elevates him as a spiritual being.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
From an uptight and emotionally cold gringo to a loving partner with an expanded world and spiritual perspective.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Surface: Typical American gringo on vacation, shallow and selfish; Subtext: damaged father and grieving widower escaping from a bad situation; Surface: Cold, unemotional; Subtext: deeply empathetic and spiritually evolving.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
His relationship with a young lesbian and other characters in the story he knows from other lives.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
How he is transformed after an NDE into a sensitive man with an immortal soul.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
His transformation from shallow gringo to enlightened soul.
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Peter’s Actor Attractors
Lead Character Name: Carlos ‘The Scorpion’ Rameriz
Role: (Protagonist)
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
• A reformed MS 13 gang enforcer who has turned to the Catholic faith and his new family for a way out of the thug life. The Scorpion is feared throughout the Texas/Mexico cartel for his reputation of killing his victims – including women and children – with a poisoned machete. Putting his past behind him, he is soon faced with a choice that will lead him back down the Highway to Hell.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
• Carlos thinks he’s left the gangster life behind him – but all he has really done is kick the can down the road. After all, The Scorpion cannot change his nature.
• The transformation as a peaceful man of God to the hate filled killer who is willing to chase his enemies to the very gates of Hell.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
• Carlos smuggles undocumented Mexican women and children in the back of the hearse across the border to reunite them with their American father.
• Carlos watches as his wife dies in his arms after she is shot by his old gang.
• Selling his soul back to Santa Muerte.
• His eventual death and resurrection thanks to Father Diego.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
• Tense moments when Carlos must lie to racist state troopers to protect the woman and child hiding in a coffin in the back of his hearse when he’s pulled over.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
• Charming and peace-loving husband and father to stone cold killer.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
• Carlos struggles with guilt over his past. Doesn’t believe that he’s a good husband and father. Resists temptation when his old gang comes to call.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
• Carlos’ hate-filled relationship with his old boss, Jude. The obsession he has with the old 1937 hearse.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
• What others say about him. His reputation precedes him everywhere he goes – including the afterlife.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
• His tragic journey from reformed gangster to undead driver of the Meat Wagon.
ACTOR ATTRACTOR TEMPLATE
Lead Character Name: Father Diego
Role: (Antagonist)
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
• Father Diego is a mentor to many former gangbangers because he was once one of them until someone showed him a different path. He’s a man of love and peace. But he’s also hiding a dark secret.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
• Father Diego was raised from the dead to pay for his sins by driving the Meat Wagon. He’s been looking for someone to pass on his curse to for decades.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
• He tries to protect Carlos from the voices calling to him from the possessed meat wagon.
• He mentors Carlos, while knowing he’s leading him down a path that will result int tragedy.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
• Father Carlos blesses the smuggled children he pulls from the coffin
• Present when the gang shoots up his church and protects Alejandro from the bullets, but can’t protect Dani
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
Compassionate, but absolutely a servant the dark
• The priest is a father figure to Carlos but is keeping a dark secret.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
• A man of God who’s soul belongs to a dark entity
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
• Carlos’ mentor and the man who raises him from the dead
• His relationship to the Meat Wagon
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
9. What could make this character special and unique?
• A man of the cloth who is secretly a necromancer who serves the Saint of Death
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Michelle Damis’ Actor Attractors
I will be a prolific writer that is sought out because of my ability to truly touch people and create memorable stories and I will have financial freedom and time with my family as I travel the world.
“What I learned from doing this assignment is
Character: “JO” Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? Jo is experiencing a multitude of things that many middle-aged women experience, and she has been stuck in a pattern, but is trying to change her life and things keep holding her back. She will eventually overcome and change her life.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? Her realness/relatability.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? She will take a taco truck cook hostage, steal the truck and use it to get her new friend to the hospital. She will go up against a bunch of bad guys!
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? Jo is getting “shit” on from every direction and holding it together…but we know she will reach her limit so the audience will be curious as to how she will eventually blow!
5. What could be this character’s emotional range. The range will be huge and complex. (think the graveyard scene with Sally Field in Steel Magnolias)
6. What subtext can the actor play? She knows she is going to be a grandma but can’t bring herself to tell her sister.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? The twin sister aspect.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
9. What could make this character special and unique? Her ability to quietly persevere with grace and then when her switch flips, she becomes an un-expeceted force.
Character: “JENNY” ANTAGONIST
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? She is FUN and FUNNY has great one-liners.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? Her sense of humor and that she appears to have it all together to her sister JO but is hiding her own secrets.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? She will be so much fun!
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? Her sense of humor.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range.
6. What subtext can the actor play? She is hiding her own secrets.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? With her twin.
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Holli’s Actor Attractors!
My vision: I am going to do whatever it takes to write amazing, resonating, Oscar-winning movies so I am respected in the professional writing world and can quit representing derelicts and perverts for a living.
What I learned doing this assignment is I have a lot more work to do on my characters.
Lead Character Name: Lucy Diego
Role: Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Lucy catches the criminals the police can’t. She’s pretty and fun and comes off as frivolous, but under the beauty queen veneer she’s smart and cunning. You don’t get to be a beauty queen by being stupid.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
Everyone thinks she’s a pretty girl with no brain because she always plays the cheerleader and sometimes gets herself into situations because of her big heart, but she’s actually smart, clever, and strategic. And pretty.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
She figures out how to find the top 10 when the police couldn’t; she relies on her pageant sisters, who are also smarter than everyone thinks, when she needs help; she catches the bad guys on her own; she convinces number 10 to help her catch the other nine.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
At the police station, getting in uniform for her first day, she tries to figure out how to put her crown on under her cop hat, maybe something else.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
Full of hope and inspired to start her new job, kind and empathetic trying to help Number 10 at the police station, competitive when she’s trying to catch the top 10, angry when she realizes the sergeant has it out for her, devastated she’ll lose her job, betrayed by Number 10, hopeless when no one believes her, determined when she has to save 10, triumphant when she comes out on top.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
She conceals how smart she is, hides her background, the fact that she isn’t really planning to help Number 10, answers her boss without lying but without telling the full truth.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
Her relationship with Number 10, who she admires and needs help from but is also planning on screwing over. Her relationship with her parents, who are old and country not the wealthy aristocrats she pretends they are. Her relationship with her pageant girl friends, who are cutthroat competitive with each other but have her back when it counts.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
She is full of pageant and social grace vocabulary and sayings, peppered with southern expressions from her parents. She never answers a question directly, especially if the answer might be perceived as rude. She’s learned how to bullshit on the pageant circuit and that’s how she deals with people.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
She has a penchant for going overboard, which often gets her in trouble, but she’s also smart enough to dig herself out.
Lead Character Name: Number 10
Role: Buddy-Antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
10 is a tough, streetwise bounty hunter who can keep up with the men in a fight or a race. She is wanted for a murder she didn’t commit, but was roofied so she doesn’t know where she was at the time the victim was killed. She needs someone in her corner, and she’ll take Lucy even though Lucy stands for everything she’s against– or so she thinks.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
She has to solve the mystery of who killed her date after she left him. She hates to ask for help and she hates women that rely on their looks to get them through life, but Lucy is her only option. She double crosses Lucy and then needs Lucy to save her.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
10 escapes lockup and Lucy twice. She uses her street connections to help Lucy, but has to stay hidden herself because she’s number 10 on the most wanted list.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Ten tricks Lucy and then defeats her, cuffing her to the handicap bar in the bathroom. No trick is beneath Ten.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
Desperation disguised by a cool demeanor, elated every time she tricks or outsmarts anyone, but particularly Lucy, fear when she’s captured, gratitude when she’s saved, outwardly confident.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Cool demeanor but she’s desperate; confident acting and bold but she doesn’t really believe she is going to escape her charges; always has a sarcastic or mean response to hide that she feels she’s less than everyone else and insecure about everything.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With Lucy, helping her only until she gets what she wants. She plays fake nice with Lucy but doesn’t start off liking or respecting her. She also has a relationship with the sergeant, who she used to date but split up because she suspected he was involved in criminal activity and didn’t want the drama.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
She talks a tough game, acts like nothing bothers her, snarky responses, bad language, a tough guy type.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
People are afraid of her because of her because of how she carries herself and the mean things she says and does, but she’s actually insecure about everything.
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Joaquin “Ibn Gray’s” Actor attractors!
My vision for the completion of this class is to write A plus intriguing screenplays that will be produced into extremely profitable movies, which I will cash large checks from.
What I learned from doing this assignment is how to generate character qualities and actions.
Lead Character Name: Brewford Dickson
Role: Protagonist
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? This character transforms into a hero on the battlefield.<div>
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? He conceals the true nature of his past, knowing he is deadly.
What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? An ex-slave turned platoon commander, that gained his freedom by fighting in a war against slavery.
What could be this character’s emotional range? Begins as a meek, non-confrontational man that is transformed into a killer after his child is captured by the local plantation owner.
What subtext can the actor play? He is attempting to live a quiet life. in a new land free from bondage.
What’s the most interesting relationship this character can have? He is the brother-in-law of a local village man.
How will this character’s unique voice be presented? Through his words of wisdom and foresight
What could make this character special and unique? His legs have been cut off at the knees, so his fighting style gives him an advantage.
<font color=”#4d5c6d” face=”SF UI Text, sans-serif”>Joaquin </font>
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Kevin Cunningham’s Actor Attractors!
My Vision: By making my high-quality writing and speaking known in many venues (the Industry, Youtube, podcasts, books), I will create a reputation as a profoundly powerful, thoughtful, and skilled writer, and be sought after for new and rewrite activities at the highest levels.
What I learned from doing this assignment: I’m deepening my feel for the characters. And I realize again that parts that appeal to actors are essential.
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Lead Character Name: MUKKI SEGENAM
Role: Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Native American in a lead role, goes from slacker to hero. He’s like the “Mr. Deeds” or “Mr. Smith” of a Capra film: a good-hearted outsider who wins over the town.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
Defies expectations of a Native American in a movie – not a “brave” or an angel. A regular kid who’s faced with a huge challenge way way over his head. He connects to everyone for help, but ultimately finds it in himself, his peers, and his tribe.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
He pulls together the leading lights of the town to get things done. They fall apart, but he persists. He doggedly strives to make the town work.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
The boy who’d rather be playing video games than get dressed up in native costume for the tourists.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
He’s fundamentally sweet, but his placid surface is ruffled and he experiences fear, overwhelm, anger, wonder, and triumph in turn. Oh, and puppy love.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
As a fish out of water, he hides his disinterest in his own tribe — everyone relates to him as a representative Native American (to their own prejudices), but he’s pretending to be the person they’re expecting. The funny thing is, he’s growing into being a true reflection of his tribe: he’s growing.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
By dint of his circumstances, he gets to know lots of adults really well. He’s surprisingly mature. Meanwhile, he’s looked up to by those his own age (even though he longs for the Powwow Princess). He creates a partnership with Mr. Fox’s daughter.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
He will have his native cadences in speaking, and will struggle to understand the world he’s in through a lens of native worldview.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
He’s repeatedly unexpected. And he sees things simply: why can’t we all get along? He’s not caught up in the divisions in white society, and naturally treis to do the right thing, while everyone else acts more and more “tribally.”
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Lead Character Name: DREW FOX
Role: Antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
He’s a smarmy but charismatic businessman — like Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. He’s always charming, and way ahead of everyone else: he’s behind everything that’s going on.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
He’s extremely self-confident, and he seems to be doing the right thing, so we can’t really make out what he’s up to. He seems to have a bigger picture than anyone else.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
He’s got all kinds of secret plans set in motion, but his most overt act is to be the deciding vote on turning the land over to the Natives. Why would he do this? It seems antithetical to his worldview. Is he having a change of heart? It’s a deep mystery. Later he appears to side with Mukki and the progressives – but for his own reasons.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
He starts off with a Gordon Gekko-esque declaration that “real estate is the future”, in contrast to the Native American love of the land. And very soon, he astounds the whole town by casting the deciding vote.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
He’s intense, then he’ll turn around and seem utterly casual. He’s loving with family, but fierce in negotiations.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
He has many schemes underway, and is a scheming rascal. Is he also a womanizer?
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
He has a complex relationship with his wife and daughter, and some town leaders, but he creates an intriguing mentoring relationship with Mukki.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
He’s a polished brilliant businessman/entrepreneur, way above everyone else in town. He also knowledgeable of classics, an encyclopedic knowledge.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
Why is he doing all this? To preserve a legacy for his family?
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Lead Character Name: JESSIE MASNUBIC
Role: Antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
She’s an over-the-top progressive, with a complex family story, and a deep wound. (Cf. Annette Bening in American Beauty.)
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
She is always on the go, agitating for all the latest causes, so she’s constantly creating new drama everywhere she turns.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
She’s the one who pushes the effort to honor the Natives. And once the motion passes, she pushes her way into Mukki’s path, to insist he behave the way she wants him to.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
She never does anything halfheartedly. She’s like a force of nature wrangling everyone to her causes.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
She’s fierce, devoted, imposing, and eventually put out of sorts and depressed. She goes into despair when her life collapses.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
She’s full of ideas, but her marriage is in ruins, and her daughter is veering away from her. She loses herself in her activism, but has a deep wound underneath it all.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
She’s married to a man who contemplates changing his gender, and she tries way too late to help her daughter, but has no clue how to do it.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
She’s unremittingly strident, that voice in Town Meeting that makes you cringe — unless you side with her. Always caustic, until her vulnerability finally hits when her family troubles come to the fore.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
She’s a representative of everything extreme, but life hits her hard so we actually care about her!
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Farrin Rosenthal’s Actor Attractors!
Farrin’s Vision: To do what it takes to become a highly paid A-List Hollywood writer whose produced movies will entertain audiences around the world.
What I learned doing this assignment is how to attract major actors. The actor has to want to play the part. They have to want to do and say the things written for them. Answering the actor attractor questions is a great way to discover more about your characters, what makes them stand out, what makes them unique, why is he or she somebody a major actor wants to play? The character must be appealing and interesting enough to attract an actor. I discovered my antagonist is a person of irony, who thinks he is in total control, but someone has stolen billions from him, so he’s not really in control.
Title: TRAPPED
Genre: Thriller
Concept: Claustrophobic and trapped in a box at the bottom of a pool for stealing $3.6 billion in Bitcoin from the Russian mob, a Los Angeles retail store manager has just 60 minutes to
prove his innocence and save his family.Lead Character Name: Tom Carter
Role: Captive
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
He is trapped in an underwater grave accused of stealing billions from a mob boss.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
The fact he is trapped and must escape to save his family.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Surviving in such a harrowing space and killing the Russians once free.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Having him trapped, not knowing where he is or why.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
From confused to scared to freaking-out to angry.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
He knows he is innocent but must convince the mob boss he is guilty.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
With the mob boss trying to survive and outwit him.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Through how he acts while trapped.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
He is claustrophobic and uses humor as a coping technique.
Lead Character Name: Ivan
Role: Russian Mob Boss
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Someone who is ruthless but highly intelligent at the same time, will go to any length to get his money back.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
He kidnapped Tom and his family and put Tom in an underwater grave.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Use of torture and the threat of torture, showing how smart he is and a person not to fuck with.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Has total control over the person he thinks stole billions from him.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
Calm to rage.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
He knows more than the captive and uses this to his advantage to cause maximum torture.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
Total control over his captive, but does he really?
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Using his intelligence while being the ultimate bad guy.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
He is a mob boss who thinks he is untouchable and in total control, but the irony is someone stole billions from him, and his rage to do whatever it takes to get it back blinds him to the fact he is not as powerful as he thinks.
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Gisele Frazeur’s Actor Attractors
My vision: I am going to work diligently to become a brilliant, reliable screenwriter who is sought after, regularly produced, highly paid, and awarded. Artistic fulfillment and financial freedom will result from the achievement of this goal!
What I learned doing this assignment is: How important it is not to leave this to chance. Attractors need to be “crafted” into the script. Also – -how I have yet to flesh these out for my antagonist – – who is somewhat surface level in my mind’s eye.
Darin August
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Darin is a BAD ASS! She is an empowering role model for women. She is the pinnacle of success in her career. She successfully avenges her pregnant sister’s murder. She is fiercely loyal to her sister, Livie, whom she needs and loves more than life itself. The role is highly unusual insomuch as there are few to no movies about female perfumers. She has an huge character arc in this film.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the story?
The way she experiences the world. As a perfumer – – she lives a very visceral life. She experiences everything predominately through her sense of smell. She relates to the detection dog in the story because she experiences life in much the same way.
3. What are the most interesting actions the lead character could take in the script?
Confront the man she believes responsible for her sister’s murder. Pay attention to Pookie’s (retired detection dog) every action in order to decipher what is being communicated to her. Fight for her sobriety.
4. How can you introduce this character in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Introduce her at the top of her game. Sober. At the pinnacle of her career – – receiving international recognition at the FiFi Awards (perfume industry awards). Dedicating her award to her baby sister.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
From destroyed by grief to avenger. From drunk and helpless to sober and BAD ASS!
6. What subtext can the actor play?
How alone she feels in the world.
7. What is the most interesting relationship this character can have?
Her relationship with the dog. They experience life in the same way – – through their sense of smell. Also, her relationship with Leff-T. She moves from believing he is the killer to believing he is the only person she can trust.
8. How can this character’s unique voice be presented?
Through her nose. Through her profession. Through her relationship to the dog. Through her journey back into sobriety.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
Her sense of smell. Her profession. The world views her profession fosters.
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Leff-T
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
How fascinating this character is. He multidimensional. He is a hero in the film.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the story?
Now a televangelist – – he has sorted past and circuitous path there. He was a gang member who found God in prison. After prison he became a famous Christian rapper. From there – – a televangelist. Though dangerous – – he still has gang ties in order to better serve his community.
3. What are the most interesting actions this character could take in the script?
Asking his followers to stop boycotting Darin’s products. Helping Darin after she accuses him of murdering her sister. Re-establishing gang ties to get intel to help with the investigation.
4. How could you introduce this role in a way that can sell it to an actor?
Leff-T is introduced as a character when Darin is drunkenly shooting at his mansion. Instead of having her arrested when the police arrive – – he watches over the passed-out Darin so she can get the first full night’s sleep since her sister’s death. His wealth and lack of polish are overshadowed by his resounding humanity.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
From benevolent to vengeful.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
His own fight for sobriety. His falling for Darin.
7. What is the most interesting relationship this character can have?
To his dogs, Montegue and Capulet. Though trained to protect and kill – – he babies them endlessly.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Through the charities he runs to help troubled youth and gang members clean the slate and start anew. Through the incongruous Christian Rap he writes and performs.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
His ability to bridge two worlds. To fit in everywhere, yet nowhere at the same time. The immense gentility and humanity that can be obscured by his past and his appearance.
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Linda’s Actor Attractors
My Vision is: I will do whatever it takes to be a sought-after profound writer with many successful movies produced and an Oscar on my mantel.
What I learned doing this assignment is focusing on these actor attractors in this way is pushing me to find uniqueness in my characters to a different level than before.
Protagonist: Joaquin
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
He is a low-level Cartel member who is non-violent, self-educated and wants out, but when he finds a way he struggles with what it will cost him.
Read
Don’t be the loud mouth, center of attention, those are the guys who get killed
Be the guy in the background who is always listening, you’ll be able to work your way out of situations
Community thinks he is the smartest one, they are not very educated, they want him to find a way out for them
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting in your story?
The transformational journey from a non-violent family man to head of the cartel who has outwitted the most evil members to protect the community.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Saves a member of the community behind the back of the head of the Cartel.
Is backed into a corner and must kill or be killed.
Takes out the director of border security, but then there’s the twist.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
A low level cartel member who, in order to protect his family, battles those in line to be the next head of the cartel.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
From fearful to outsmarting to brutal to powerful.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
He plays the part of an uneducated low level worker to listen and study the evil members of the cartel, then uses the knowledge against them.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
The dying drug lord confides in him, giving him critical information. They also have a unique relationship – his father saved the drug lord’s life multiple times as his bodyguard so he protects him as a debt, but at the same time is disappointed that all he turned out to be is a low level worker.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Teaches his children to be educated, not to be loud mouths, to keep their heads down and wait for the moment when they can make the biggest impression. Uses quotes of successful people to make points.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
How he studied his competitors for years, hoping to have an opportunity to use it to get out of the cartel. He has insider information no one else in the competition has due to his relationship with the drug lord.
Antagonist: Arturo
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
He is a loud-mouthed brutal man who talks about his feelings. He’s obsessed with Joaquin’s wife and won’t hurt her physically. She is the only person in his life who he thought truly loved him and is determined to earn her love back.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting in your story?
The irony of him not taking Joaquin’s wife, but he will take lives and rape other women. He lures Joaquin into the competition so he will kill and lose something in his wife’s eyes. He can’t kill him because she will hate him.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Brutal murders to win points. Stalks and terrorizes Joaquin and his family. Takes Joaquin’s wife when she comes to him, then learns she is disgusted by him and just trying to save her husband from his wrath.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
A brutal killer who terrorizes the community but is blinded by the love of a woman, which may lead to his downfall.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
From brutal and driven to love and regret.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Is obsessed with Joaquin’s wife and is stalking him and luring him into the competition so he can turn her against him and win her back.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
His relationship with Joaquin’s wife. His relationship with Joaquin who he hates but must pretend to treat as cartel family.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Loud-mouth, talks too much.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
He has hallucinations – sees things, hears things, smells things. When he has them he wants to “put them down” – will shoot, burn, etc. Sometimes talks to himself thinking someone else is there.
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Still unable to post by cutting and pasting – annoying! Seeing red over this!
Lead Character Name: Capt. Phil Conner Role: Protagonist
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? With the killer/friend.
Lead Character Name: FBI agent Ben Derringer Role: Antagonist
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? He foils a bank robbery.
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Jane’s Actor Attractors
MY VISION: I will make my living as a screenwriter by selling my own narrative scripts and successfully fulfilling writing assignments.
By doing this assignment I learned how much I know about these characters but also how much more there is to explore. This assignment helped me think about what can be created for characters are so engrained in our culture that can shed new light on them while also remaining true to their core that has made them such beloved characters for so many people. I learned that there’s a lot to discover and what I come up with will be very appealing to talent, producers, directors and audience members. Strangely, I feel in a very comfortable space with this project. These two characters have been with me most of my life. It’s nice to imagine another side of them!
Title: NOT A CLUE!
Lead Character Name: June Marvel
Role: Protagonist/Antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? The role is a twist on Agatha Christie’s Miss Jane Marple, an iconic character who is known for great insight into the human heart as she quietly solves mysteries. In this iteration, the character has more than few blind spots that keep her from picking up on even the most obvious clues.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? She is the main antagonist for the other Protagonist/Antagonist who is based on Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, another great iconic sleuth. She is one half of a “battle of the sexes” as she commits a crime to stump her foe, only to wind up the target of a murderer.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? She commits an unsolvable crime while recuperating from a hip replacement. She allows herself to be “murdered” in order to catch a killer.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? Her arrival at the assisted living home reveals her to be bitchy, with a biting wit, under the guise of a sweet little old lady.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? From sarcastically biting and calculating to wounded pride to compassionate and very brave – all while trying to best her opponent.
6. What subtext can the actor play? While she has always led a quiet life, she longs for adventure and action and the limelight. When it comes to her, she finds she’s damn good at it but doesn’t really need it.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? June’s relationship with Percival – they are adversaries and teammates at the same time.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? Her prim, lady-like manner contrasts with her willingness to fight dirty and take physical action when things heat up and she has to fight back.
9. What could make this character special and unique? The twist on a character we all think we know.
Lead Character Name: Percival Heriot
Role: Protagonist/Antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? The role is a twist on Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, an iconic character who is known for solving murders through use of his superior mind. In this iteration, the character’s mind is so bombastic and self-assured that crime happens right under his nose and he doesn’t know.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? He is the main antagonist for the other Protagonist/Antagonist who is based on Agatha Christie’s Jane Marple, another great iconic sleuth. He is the second half of a “battle of the sexes” as he commits a crime to stump his foe, only to wind up being set up to take the blame for her murder.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? He assumes that no one can outwit him. The crime he commits is easily solved but actually plays into the broader scheme of the real murderer. He’s easily used and doesn’t know it until it is almost too late.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? During his first meal at the assisted living facility, he attempts to amaze everyone at the table only to reveal how much about regular life he doesn’t know.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? From self-assured and vain to sneaky to something like self-sacrifice for a friend.
6. What subtext can the actor play? His life in the spotlight makes it nearly impossible for him to exist as an ordinary person. He decides to write his autobiography but it comes out to 5 ½ pages of riveting drama.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? Percival’s relationship with June – they are adversaries and teammates at the same time.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? His refined, self-confidence contrasts to his absolute confusion over the very act of living a quiet, normal life.
9. What could make this character special and unique? The twist on a character we all think we know.
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Paul Mahoney’s Actor attractors!
What I learned from doing this assignment is that even if you don’t have all the answers that shouldn’t stop you from progressing.
Vision: My vision is to be a successful full-time writer with a good steady income, who constantly learns, enjoys life, creates employment for others and brings joy, fun, fulfilment, health, happiness, inspiration & an attitude of gratitude to my partner and others.
Lead Character Name:
Role: (Antagonist) Mrs. Wagner – God – initially seen as an Antagonist by our character.
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
I don’t recall God being played by a female before, so this could be a fun take of God as being overworked, Mother Earth, giving all the answers that the protagonist needs, but he just not recognizing it.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
She has the power to change everything that can affect our protagonist.
What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Punishing the protagonist as a child, a punishment that lasts into his adulthood.
How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
As a mean grumpy teacher who is the protagonist’s nemesis.
What could be this character’s emotional range
Mean, crazy. Logical, rational
What subtext can the actor play?
That when she talks about punishment we initially think it will be a short lived punishment such as making the child to sit on the naughty mat, not giving him a punishiment such as premature ejaculation that will raise its ugly head nearly a decade later.
What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
She can shape shift and can only be seen by the protagonist. She also knows everyone’s secrets.
How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Fed up, overworked, menopausal mother-earth type.
What could make this character special and unique?
Could also perhaps show this character to be shown as she also has a mental illness?
ACTOR ATTRACTOR TEMPLATE
Lead Character Name:
Role: (Protagonist Allie) Kyla – Sex Therapist
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
A sex therapist with her own sexual hang ups. Is attracted to a patient, which is a big no-no.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
She has a thing for chubby guys, not tall dark and handsome.
What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Try to keep Dan in the ward, just so she can keep seeing him and treating him. Keeping her past a secret.
How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Getting turned on watching Dan cry?
What could be this character’s emotional range?
Calm, cool, needy, sexually repressed.
What subtext can the actor play?
She was Dan’s childhood friend and had always secretly loved him, but never had the nerve to tell him.
What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
She has an ethical dilemma and when she tells her psychiatrist, he in turn professes his love for her and freaks her out.
How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Not sure?
What could make this character special and unique?
Irony of a sex therapist with her own sexual hang-ups and is infatuated with a patient, yet her psychiatrist is infatuated with her.
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Bob DeCarli’s Actor Attractors
My Vision: To master my craft to the point where I’ve earned a reputation as the screenwriter top producers, directors, and stars can call upon when they need someone to save the day.
What I learned: To remain open to new ideas for who my characters are, and not feel locked in to a story which, at this point, is just a brief outline.
Movie Title: LEST YE BE JUDGED
Lead Character JUNIOR JUDGE:
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role?
A variation on the lead in AMERICAN PSYCHO, except he’s a judge and he redeems himself. He initially appears to be the victim, wrongly accused of a crime that threatens to destroy his career, but it’s ultimately revealed that he DID DO the crime he’s accused of, although in a different way, and the people “framing him” don’t know this. He’s as much of a criminal as those he sentences in his courtroom, but he ultimately arguably redeems himself, and learns how to be a judge, actually deserving the position.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie?
Multiple layers:
Top 1 – a self-absorbed, Federalist Society judge
Layer -1: a criminal whose history, if known, would have prevented him from becoming a judge. He did do the crime he’s framed for, but not in the exact way that he’s been set up, and those setting him up don’t know it (initially).
Layer -2: A victim himself as a child, and the reveal and remembering of this experience leads him to adopting the characteristics necessary to actually be a good judge.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie?
–first appearance, a frat boy flirting with a woman, immediately after which it’s revealed he’s a judge and the young woman is his law clerk.
–mercilessly rules from the bench, sentencing a man to death with barely any thought.
–When confronted with law enforcement trying to arrest him, he first begs for help (from a fellow judge), then runs away.
–He joins forces, by necessity, with the man he just sentenced to death.
–He plots the kidnapping of a US Senator.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
–He presented as the last person in the world you’d want to have as a judge, by showing how he acts in private, then he walks out and takes the bench.
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
–Fear (of being arrested and spending his life behind bars)
–Depression to the point of being on the verge of suicide.
–Anger (when he discovers who set him up)
–Kind (to the lowliest)
6. What subtext can the actor play?
–he’s hiding who he is; underneath the cocky veneer, he’s afraid of being identified as being unworthy of his position (imposter syndrome?).
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
–with DEATH ROW, the guy he sentenced to death, and with whom he is now on the run.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
Evasion, hiding his motives, in contrast with a direct approach one would expect of someone on the bench.
9. What makes this character special and unique?
We rarely see judges presented as real people, much less as a deeply flawed person who is basically a criminal.
10. (Fill in a scene that shows the character fulfilling much of the Actor Attractor model.)
Evading arrest in his own courtroom.
Lead Character DEATH ROW:
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role?
A troubled, flawed criminal, who has done many horrible things in his life, but ironically, was sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie?
He’s a life-long criminal, who spent his life doing the wrong thing. Then, when he makes the right choice, it results in a criminal charge for murder and a death sentence.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie?
He does not kill or seek revenge against the JUDGE, who just sentenced him to death, but instead agrees to help him.
He puts himself in a position that will ultimately get him killed
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
Attempting to give an impassioned speech – out of order – in the courtroom, just after he’s sentenced to death. When we first read/see it, it’s assumed to be all a lie, but it’s ultimately revealed to be the truth.
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
Anger, fear for the likely death of himself, later bravery in the face of death, horror at witnessing the death of an innocent, joy/laughing as a release in a tense situation
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Scheming.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
With the Judge, who is in many ways his mirror image.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
He comes off as a criminal (because he is), therefore most of his actions are assumed to be purely out of self-interest, but his moral code is that “innocents” should not be harmed.
9. What makes this character special and unique?
A hardened criminal who faces a death sentence because he did the right thing for once.
10. (Fill in a scene that shows the character fulfilling much of the Actor Attractor model.)
–Impassioned speech at the beginning
–Willingly walking into death, knowing that he will die, with the hope of revealing the bad guys, which is in direct contrast with an earlier scene where he runs from the threat of death.
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Teresa Rodriguez’s Actor Attractors
My Vision: I will become a highly respected and influential writer/producer with my own successful production company that I can leave as a blessing to my children and many generations to come.
What I learned from doing this assignment are better ways to make my lead characters unique.
Lead Character Name: LILY
Role: (Protagonist)
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? Has a strong transformational journey from an unconfident princess to an unperfect heroine.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? She has the strength to leave a perfectionist fairytale life behind for a world where she can be herself, not perfect but a good example to other young women.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? Resists the pressure of being “perfect” in a world of heavily filtered, perfectionist social media campaigns. Stands up to her perfectionist father the king.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? While people are scrambling for a chance to get inside the castle, she’s out outside the walls living and letting all her flaws show.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? Goes from an unconfident fish-out-of-water to a strong, confident hero.
6. What subtext can the actor play? Emotional wounds of not being perfect enough for her father, the king.
7. What are the most interesting relationships this character can have? With her co-worker/commoner who helps her love herself, warts and all.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? She rebukes the common social media practice of looking perfect and having the perfect life in order to be successful and happy.
9. What could make this character special and unique? She’s not the perfect size zero princess with flawless skin. She’s normal, and has flaws but learns to love herself “warts and all”.
Lead Character Name: Grumpy
Role: (Antagonist)
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? Lead Dwarf, a badass warrior who’s trying to steal the kingdom.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? Plays two roles, a loyal subject to the king and a manipulator who’s trying to steal the throne.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script? He is a skilled warrior and master manipulator.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? He’s on the battlefield defeating men twice his size.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? Confident, angry, and insecure, to afraid when Lily conquers him.
6. What subtext can the actor play? He’s really trying to steal the throne but acts like a loyal subject/knight to the king. Insecure.
7. What are the most interesting relationships this character can have? With his own demons, as he fights inner thoughts of being inadequate. Thinks it’s because of his size that he’s never had a girlfriend. He has to find and recruit other dwarfs to help pull off his scheme on Lily.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? Through the contract of acting like a loyal knight while really being a villain trying to steal Lily’s heart and the kingdom.
9. What could make this character special and unique? He has charisma and is a badass warrior.
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Reginald’s Actor attractors!
My Vision: I am going to utilize my talents as a writer to catapult myself to the A-list, causing people in this industry to consider my writing among the best in the business.
What I learned from doing this assignment is I was able to take information about the lead character and use it to mold the story around him, giving me a clearer sense of who he is and what he is about.
LEAD CHARACTER NAME: Leon Hatchet
ROLE: Antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it? Leon goes from being a terrorizing force that the audience hates, to being alone and fearing for his life, causing the audience to feel empathetic.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story? Because of the level of intrigue that surrounds him, especially when it comes to caring about the school children not using drugs but ultimately recruiting them to sell those same drugs for him.
3. What are the most interesting actions the lead could take in the script? He could have a change of heart and respond favorably to Anson’s attempts to deter him from a life of crime.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor? By intensifying the amount of terror Leon experiences as he pleads for his life.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range? Looks the other way when he learns that members of his gang assaulted a young woman. Asks for the heads of anyone who opposes his way. Becomes speechless when his dead father is the topic of discussion.
6. What subtext can the actor play? Has a tough exterior and takes pride in being known as a thug, masking his real fear which is dying and not being able to raise his son.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have? He tends to be occasionally cordial with the protagonist, SSgt. Anson Haley, who was a friend of his late father. He loves his son but fails to set a good example of what a responsible man is. He is highly respected by gang members.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented? When he is begging for his life, he begins to understand how many people he has hurt and how much damage he has caused with his terrorizing ways.
9. What could make this character special and unique? His transformational journey causes the audience to feel empathetic towards him during his moments of experiencing terror.
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Natalie’s Characters Actor attractors!
My vision is to create and produce award winning stories that make an unforgettable emotional impact on a worldwide audience.
What I learned from this assignment is that having looked at the characters with this structure helps to dig deeper into their inner self.
Lead Character Name: EMILY KINGSLEY / protagonist
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role? Emily is an intriguing character who lives in her own unique world. She has a mind case of the DID and undergoes a definitive transformational journey from insecure, confined recluse living life of two personalities to a bold, confident woman who takes chance at love.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? Emily is vulnerable, flawed, insecure and gullible who hasn’t been exposed to the outside world. She makes mistakes and is easily manipulated by the antagonist. Definitely a unique playground for a talented actor to enjoy and show their range of skills.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? Aside from Emily actively living two lives of that of her missing daughter and herself as a mother, she takes proactive actions toward her obsessive goal of saving her child from a sacrifice.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? Emily is vulnerable, flawed, insecure and gullible. She hasn’t been exposed to the outside world, makes mistakes and is easily manipulated by the antagonist. Her situation and journey is relatable to a wide audience. Definitely a unique playground for a skilled actor to enjoy.
5. What is this character’s emotional range? Emily from insecure, confused and paranoid recluse, to naive fish out of the water character, to emotional wreck, to a proactive seeker of truth, to taking actions for protecting her labored ones, to believer in her self-worthiness, to a forgiving woman who allows love into her live.
6. What subtext can the actor play? Emily’s inner world is dark and insecure. She blocked her memories to avoid an unbearable pain of losing her child at a childbirth. She is confused and misled by her own overthinking and other characters and makes her moves based on her own sketches drawn under a hypnosis.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? With her inner self, her love interest and the antagonist.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented? Emily has flashbacks and jolts of memory drawn from her drawings and places she goes into. Her voice is that of a confused, insecure woman who doesn’t trust even her own self.
9. What makes this character special and unique? Emily’s duality and insecurity as well as her strong will to overcome her illness and find peace and love in her life.
10. (Fill in a scene that shows the character fulfilling much of the Actor Attractor model.) Emily visits Hagan at the hospital, where Lady Winslet’s lawyer brings Hunter in. She runs to hug Hagan. As they reunite, Hagan silently pronounces his love for Emily. Overwhelmed, she has a flashback to her childhood where instead of losing Hagan, they reunite with a kiss.
Lead Character N2: WALTER KINGSLEY / antagonist
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role? Walter is a talented, manipulative and crafty character who will stop at nothing to eliminate potential heirs to family fortune.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? Walter is a crossdresser who uses his multiple talents to impersonate other characters whom he kills. He acts as an ally, but deep down inside, he is driven by vengeance and determination to achieve his ultimate prize – Emily’s public humiliation and the inheritance.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? Walter plays different characters using trust and deceit. Too many to mention.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? Walter’s character is extravagant, daring, vengeful and conniving, but he is also a vulnerable underdog who struggles to be appreciated and loved.
5. What is this character’s emotional range? from ruthless to vulnerable
6. What subtext can the actor play? that of an underdog who is unfairly treated, neglected and hurt.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? with Emily and Hagan.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented? He plays different characters and changes his body moves, voice and emotional involvement.
9. What makes this character special and unique? His skillful deceitful presence
10. (Fill in a scene that shows the character fulfilling much of the Actor Attractor model.) Too many to mention.
Lead Character 3: HAGAN VALENTINE / Love interest
Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role? Hagan’s character is likable and relatable to a wide audience. because of his origin. Being half African American man born to a wealthy aristocratic father and a black maid, Hagan is rejected by the family, deprived of the love of his life, and cut off from the inheritance.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? Hagan’s character is interesting because he steps out of his comfort zone in order to fight for the love of his life.3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? Hagan is a recluse, he runs his night club and lives alone after his wife’s murder. His daughter, Hunter, is taken care of Lady Winslet and his love, Emily is nowhere to be found. Although he appears to be doing most manipulations in pursuit of his covert plan for the inheritance, the only thing he wants is to reinstate his status in the family, find love and belong. With that said, Hagan appears desolate and vengeful, although we realize at the end, that it was Walter’s masterful disguise and hagan has nothing to do with threatening Emily’s life.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? Hagan’s character is presented as a strong, courageous man who tries to save his love and fight for his rights.
5. What is this character’s emotional range? from polite to outraged, determined, devious (not him), and vulnerable.
6. What subtext can the actor play? Hagan’s character is an underdog who struggles with his identity, but is strong enough to prove his self-worthiness
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? With Emily and Walter (disguised as Hagan’s assistant, Cherimoya).
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented? Hagan’s voice is distinguished by sorrow, un fairness and pride.
9. What makes this character special and unique? His ability to withstand the family and Walter’s schemes.
10. (Fill in a scene that shows the character fulfilling much of the Actor Attractor model.) Hagan’s character is likable Disguises himself as the Phantom and dances with Emily trying to trigger her memory toward remembering their love.
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Jill Clifford’s Actor Attractors
My Vision: I am going to become skillful enough as a screenwriter that I can to get my scripts into the hands of producers, and ultimately get one or more into a produced feature film.
What I learned from doing this assignment is that every character has more depth than originally conceived, and exploring that depth helps to create additional scenes in my mind.
Lead Character Name: Hagen Stavros (Alejandro)
Role: Protagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
For Hagen, it is the emotional journey. Hagan goes from a well earned hate for Hispanics to a well deserved acceptance and compassion.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
Hagan is always a good person, but he learns to help even those people he once hated. Throughout this journey, Hagen has to hide his initial hatred of his coworkers, as well as who he is really is and why he is there, both from them and from the farm manager Clint.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Hagan is brave, he leaps out a second story window in an effort to save a child. He regains the trust of those he is investigating when they discover who he really is, allowing him to shoot down the helicopter chasing them. He is befriended by Rosa (Isabella) and falls for her, even though she is Hispanic.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Hagan has the bravery to leap out a second floor window to try to save a young girl, and he is heartbroken when the girl is needlessly killed.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
Hagan’s emotional range is extreme, from the rage and grief of having a child he risked his live to save die in his arms, to the fear of being hunted with help only from the people he was investigating, to the compassion to help those he pursued, and even to fall in love and propose to one of them.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Hagan hides his identity from Clint, the antagonist, and from his co-workers while searching for illegals among them, and for the man who killed his sister. He also has to hide the fact that he is falling in love with one of the illegals who has helped him.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
Befriended by Hispanic illegal, Isabella, who helps him maintain his undercover identity, he falls in love with her against his better judgment.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Hagan’s voice comes out through his actions, from risking his life to save a child, to going undercover in a risky situation, to saving the men who helped save him, to proposing to a woman he was investigating.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
Hagen’s courage and determination to protect and save those endangered with him, in spite of his initial hatred of the illegal Hispanic immigrants.
Lead Character Name: Rosa (Isabella)
Role: Protagonist love interest
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Rosa is courageous and clever in how she escapes being killed in Mexico. Taking the name of Isabella, she is compassionate as she helps Hagan fit in at the farm, and in protecting his secret as an INS agent. She is strong as she survives and helps others survive in the desert while they are being hunted by Clint.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
(Rosa) Isabella’s selfless love for Hagan helps Hagan see that her people are mostly good and caring people, and that the illegal immigrants are being used and abused.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Rosa escapes death in Mexico when her family is murdered. As Isabella, she has the courage to stand up to Clint, and to defend Hagen when his identity is exposed, and helps her coworkers survive in the desert.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Rosa is at home when her family is murdered, but is courageous, clever, and skillful enough to hide and escape to the United States, knowing that the drug lord who killed them is now having her hunted.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
Rosa is a caring, loving person, who has been traumatized by losing her family and being nearly killed in Mexico. She has to live with the fear of being hunted by a killer. However, nearly dying in the desert, as Isabella, she shows her caring and love for her people and for Hagan that helps many survive.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Rosa, as Isabella, hides the fact that someone is hunting her down to kill her, so information will not get back to the drug lord who killed her family. She also does not want anyone to know other than Clint that she is there illegally. She also falls for Hagan, but doesn’t want him to know as she does not want to endanger him. She also hides Hagen’s true identity when she discovers it.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
Rosa’s (Isabella’s) relationship with Hagan is incredible. She falls for him, aids him in learning how to be a farm worker, defends him against the other illegals when his identity is exposed, but hides her affections from him. She also has a contentious relationship with Clint, who knows she is an illegal, and although he tries to take advantage of that, she stands up to him.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Rosa (Isabella) is a caring, compassionate and very skillful person. Her voice comes through is the way she helps others, yet stands up for herself when confronted.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
Rosa (Isabella) has incredible strength and compassion. She must hide her true identity from those hunting her, but this doesn’t let this stop her from helping others.
Lead Character Name: Clint
Role: Antagonist
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
Clint is the farm manager and an extremely devious and manipulative antagonist, exploiting his own boss, and controlling both the overseers under him and the laborers. He has no conscious and conspires to murder any illegal migrant workers to keep their summer’s pay. He keeps two sets of books and cheats everyone, including the farm owner.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
Clint is extremely clever and manipulative. He enlists the help of his overseers in his criminal activities, while keeping the owner of the farm and the laborers, including the illegals, unaware.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Clint keeps two sets of different books. The accounting books are obvious, but the other set keeps the audience guessing why until it is revealed later. He abuses workers that he knows are illegal, threatening them with deportation if they complain. He arranges to take a group of workers into the desert to be killed to keep their wages. When some of them escape, he continues to hunt them until they are cornered.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Clint is threatening and assaulting a woman that he hired, knowing she is an illegal, showing his villainous side, when he is called away to speak to a bus load of new arrivals to be interviewed. He immediately takes on a charming, caring persona to address and interview potential workers.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range
Clint, who is evil, devious, and totally without a conscience, can fool and manipulate people with any emotions he chooses. He only cares about himself and money.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Clint plays the roll of good and honest foreman so as to fool the owner, the laborers and those under his command that are not part of the plot to steal from the laborers. He also distrusts even the ones who are co-conspirators, and is quite willing to kill them if they get in his way.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character can have?
Clint must play friend and loyal worker to his boss, the farm owner. He must also manipulate the people under him that are on the take, to keep them loyal and keep the secret hidden. He terrorizes and abuses the illegal immigrant women, demanding sex for inside jobs and to not be deported.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Clint adapts to whatever character he needs to be for the situation. He is all business with the farm owner, while secretly robbing him. He is a charming and caring employer when interviewing the potential workers, while soliciting sex from the women for inside jobs. He is the ruthless mass murderer, who cares nothing about the pain and deaths of his chosen workers.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
Clint is exceptionally good at manipulating people. This is shown in the way he recruits one of the overseers under him to help in his murderous, money-making plot, and then has no compunction in shooting him when the fellow has doubts about what they are doing.
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Lauren’s Actor attractors
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Marcus Armstrong’s Actor Attractors!
MY VISION: I am going to be so disciplined in the daily writing process and become such an adept writer that my successful screenplays will launch me into a full-time writing career.
What I learned from doing this assignment is the Actor Attractors provide a framework to developing characters that have a better chance of drawing bigger actors. Still far behind, this draft is very rough and needs a lot of work.
Lead Character Name: Edmund
Role: Protagonist
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role?
An underdog who never stood up to his abusive father and other childhood bullies transforms into a killing machine to avenge the senseless deaths of poached animals.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the story?
Almost incapable of standing up for himself, he overcompensates by not only standing up for poached animals, but killing the poachers in the same way they killed the animals.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in this script?
Tracking and hunting humans while eluding the pursuit of a U.S. Marshal agent. Clubbing seal poachers to death, killing elephant poachers by piercing them and extracting their teeth until they ultimately die.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
He is shown in a river holding another man underwater, but is overcome with compassion
and lets the man up just before he drowns. At the same time, he turns to see another man aiming a gun at him. As we pan back to the man in the river, a gunshot rings out, but we do not know the outcome. The scene abruptly changes to a flashback of him as a boy next to a river feeling helpless as his father drown a bag of unwanted kittens.
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
Sadness and intense rage over the animal poaching. Love for his former girlfriend, Isabella.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
A bit of a shy demeanor, he completely masks his intense rage over needless animal killing. While almost acting powerless and avoidant, he inwardly has a calculated plan to exact revenge.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
The wife of the U.S. Marshal agent who is tracking him is actually his former zoology classmate and girlfriend. He is still deeply in love with her.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
Rather soft-spoken, his rage is more calculated that wild. He comes across more like a silent assassin.
9. What makes this character special and unique?
He overcomes a childhood of abuse by his father and being bullied, maintains his love for Isabella, yet is passionate about his mission to avenge the deaths of poached animals.
Lead Character Name: Raymond
Role: Antagonist
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role?
An arrogant, hotshot U.S. Marshal, who thinks he is above the law and believes he will always win.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the story?
Although he has the persona of being invincible, he is inwardly insecure, mistreats his wife and is actually taking bribes by the animal hunters to look the other way.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in this script?
Recklessly pursing Edmund even to the point of being out of control.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
A handsome, popular, capable U.S. Marshal is shown capturing the head of a dangerous cartel. At first, it appears he may be the hero of the story.
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
Romantic yet angry, confident yet insecure.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
Although working to uphold the law, he hides the fact that he is taking bribes. He is also a charmer who disguises that he is verbally and somewhat physically abusive to his wife.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
He controls his wife, yet has all her friends believing he is the ultimate husband. He grows to despise Edmund, not so much for his mercy killing, but because of his relationship with his wife and because Edmund’s activity is threatening his bribe income.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
Overbearing, falsely charismatic, overly charming.
9. What makes this character special and unique?
He is duplicitous and is the exact opposite of the person he portrays.
Lead Character Name: Isabella
Role: Triangle Character
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role?
Abused wife of Raymond, U.S. Marshal, and former girlfriend of protagonist Edmund. She is cunning and brilliant and works out a plan to leave Raymond for Edmund.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the story?
She understands Edmund’s fragile psyche caused by teenage abuse. She is the only one to instill in him confidence. She wants to help him, but has to figure out how to leave Raymond and not get killed.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in this script?
She appears supportive and loyal to her abusive husband, but carries on an affair with Edmund.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor?
Isabella is one of the first people Edmund meets at Stanford as they are both zoology freshmen. They become fast friends, study partners and eventually lovers. She always protects Edmund’s fragile psyche.
5. What is this character’s emotional range?
Fear when Raymond abuses her, but love for Edmund.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
She appears loyal to Raymond as she carries on a secret affair with Edmund and even sabotages Raymond’s efforts to capture Edmund.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has?
A broken relationship with her abusive husband and an eternal bond with Edmund.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented?
Passive when around Raymond, but passionate around Edmund.
9. What makes this character special and unique?
Like her husband, she is duplicitous and appeases him, but secretly develops a plan to escape with Edmund.
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Christopher Dalbey’s Actor Attractors!
My Vision: To claim “screenwriter” as my primary profession, have the time to write as prolifically as I intend, to be well respected and sought after in the industry for my scripts that are both memorable and ground-breaking.
I just love creating Actor Attractors for my characters!
What I learned from doing this assignment is how to really dive into my characters and see what they’re really all about. The fun part about this assignment is to imagine who would best play these roles and build the intrigue into the characters so as to attract the A-listers.
Concept: In the future, a top psychologist is assigned a transcriber with empath and supernatural abilities who puts herself in the shoes of the world’s deadliest criminals, covertly becoming their judge and jury.
Lead Character Name: NIA COLEMAN
Role: (Protagonist) a transcriber with empath abilities who is assigned to the world’s leading psycho therapist in evaluating a new line of criminals of the future.
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
She is an intellectual with badass empath abilities to weave in and out of crime scenes as different characters, giving her opportunities to unearth truths that no one else can access. A real truth seeker who has a flair for the dramatics that shows her fun side.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
The contrast of her aiding Dr. Dahl in her psycho-analysis while secretly investigating the criminals on her own terms, in time travel. The transformational journey of becoming the badass hero that saves the future world of hybrid criminals.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
Learning of her time traveling aptitude when she experiences massive anxiety attacks, the supernatural abilities that come along with it. The excitement and thrill of her transforming into characters with every scene she is transported into to duel with high level criminals.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
Showing her badass fighting skills when she does battle with these elite criminals, seeking the truth on her own terms and as different characters.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
From an introverted, emotionally scarred, shy intellect who always goes by the book, to a truth seeking, gutsy vigilante with empath and supernatural powers.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
From the beginning, Nia’s competitive nature comes into play when she is assigned to Dr. Dahl. But the deeper and more successful she is in her time travel investigations the more combative she is with Dr. Dahl and her theories. Especially when she learns the truths about the criminals she and Dr. Dahl are evaluating.
7. What’s the most interesting relationship this character can have?
Her and Dr. Dahls’ professional and personal relationships are both tumultuous and harmonious. They know each other’s deepest secrets and there is a level of trust that is sometimes tested when things get tough.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Through the contrast between her own personal take of the criminal’s actions and punishment (via the time travel where she plays various characters that interact with the criminals) and her differing approach and opinions on how to treat these elite line of criminals.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
she is an introvert with academic inclinations counters her heroic and tenacious ways that becomes more apparent when she taps into this other dimension and her newfound powers.
Lead Character DR. HANNAH DAHL
Role: (antagonist) a top level psycho-therapist who has transcriber and linguistic specialist, Nia Coleman, assigned to her in helping analyze a lethal army of hybrid criminals that are invading our planet.
1. What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it?
She is a world renowned psycho-therapist who is obsessed with her ground-breaking unorthodox methods of examining her patients (hybrid criminals), pushing the limits of her fantasies and reality. She struggles with her own identity and has sexual addictions.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in your story?
The contrast of her being the professional that she is but also secretly looking for a way to seduce her patients for her own sexual needs. The transformational journey of her inevitably turning into a ruthless killer herself.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead could take in the script?
The intense scene of her being more intrigued than frightened when a therapy session goes wayward and puts her and Nia in great danger with a patient who tricks them both – she seduces him back into custody but was really testing her sexual prowess. Another scene in the last episode where she and Nia come face to face in time travel, seeing their true identities for the first time.
4. How can you introduce this role in a way that could sell it to an actor?
A celebrated psych-therapist whose unorthodox methods may save the world from being overrun by an elite group of hybrid criminals while also satiating her sexual appetites that fuels her.
5. What could be this character’s emotional range?
From a highly intelligent and powerful psychologist to sexual deviant with a damaged past that haunts her every motive.
6. What subtext can the actor play?
From the beginning, she comes off as a scholarly psychologist who secretly yearns for power in the future world. But, because of her wounds, she is always scheming to feed her sexual needs and to remain in charge at all costs.
7. What’s the most interesting relationship this character can have?
Her and Nia’s professional and personal relationships are both tumultuous and harmonious. They know each other’s deepest secrets and there is a level of trust that is sometimes tested when things get tough.
8. How will this character’s unique voice be presented?
Through the contrast between her methods in psycho-therapy and her perverse and covert ways to lure her patients into sexual favors.
9. What could make this character special and unique?
She is fearless in her approach to treat her patients with her unorthodox methods that, at times, can be very risky and dangerous. Her methods not only are quicker paths to curing the criminals of their urges but also lends itself to understanding where these hybrid monsters come from and what they are all about.
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Jacqueline Murphy Actor Attractors MOD 3 Lesson 2 August 1, 2022
VISION: To empower myself to go for my dreams to be a great writer, actress and filmmaker who is “Admired”, recognized and sought after by the industry and has many successful TV & Film projects produced that make a difference and inspire others to go for their dreams.
What I learned that by doing the “10 min” chunks I discussed with Hal this Saturday that I was falling behind, just getting started and not having to be perfect and using the lesson before to build on and this template I just went for it. The “first draft” idea was great because I know I can come back and improve it but just get the general shape and maybe I will be inspired or subconcious will come up with stronger more powerful and moving actor attractors.
1. Start this assignment by empowering yourself using our State-To-Activity empowerment process. State: I just love…Activity: …creating Actor Attractors for my characters!
2. Once you’ve done that, answer the Actor Attractor questions for your 2 or 3 lead characters. Consider this a first draft.
Movie Title: Sorceress of Hollywood
#2 Lead Character Name: Olivia Spencer
1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role? Time travel from Wannabe actress to Movie star then Sorceress with magical powers. CGI affects and magic!
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? Her obsession with beauty, stardom but transforms into a person of substance who empowers herself and others.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? Underestimating her abilities and powers. Olivia goes from “waiting to have things happen” to making things happen. Decisions to go back to OH Dimension and adventure and try on a new role for herself. Her TRANSFORMATION for self-centered to empowered authentic ruler.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? Given a family heirloom upon the death of her mom: a Kaliedoscope that as she looks into it shows her HER VISION and deepest desires as she “falls” into the reverie-IT’S ACTUALLY HAPPENING- We see the Paramount Studio gates and Olivia is falling into her “Movie Star” role.
5. What is this character’s emotional range? Goes from prisoner of her own desire, to seducer of Sorcerer, Studio Head, Mafia Boss tricking them, to positioning herself to be in power but as a benevolent ruler. Learns to “play the game” & navigate this OH Dimension “underworld” better than they do and in the end chooses to share & spend (hence the last name of Spencer-the “dispenser) her empowerment with others.
6. What subtext can the actor play? From lover to killer, failed actress to star, tricking all with different versions of herself then realizes it’s her authenticity that’ll win her what she truly desires: a purpose, respect of herself and by others and there wanting her to be a star and rule. What’s truly worthwhile is helping others.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? With the Sorcerer: Damien as she realizes her powers and begins to “best” him. Conflict occurs when a romance develops between them and when she realizes who she really is she must choose to kill him to rule or give him the crown. AND that he’s her step brother. With Angelica her BFF who is a psychic she thinks Angelica will go along with her but once he ssees the truth of who Olivia is Angelica and she collide when A tries to bring her back to the Real world but Mistrust, power struggles develop and Angelica shifts loyalties once realizing Olivia is ruler and wants power for herself creating a triangle between the Sorcerer, Olivia and Angelica. The shocker is they are all related and in love with each other in different ways: Brother/sister/lover friend. All 3 must resolve the different fractured sides of themselves and find their true purposes of why they were born.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented? In her ability to “act” her way through things until she figures out and gets enough info for her next step. She goes from acting to authentic.
9. What makes this character special and unique? Her acting ability allows her to move people and learn the “truth” about who they are. Her sincere authentic self and forgiving way causes people to “let down their guard” never believing she is as Powerful as she is.
10. (Fill in a scene that shows the character fulfilling much of the Actor Attractor model.)
Olivia shows up in the OH Dimension as a movie star and is hurtled into world of danger, backstabbing and mystery. She uses her “acting” ability to play along as she figures out this world. Her “true self” kind and caring helps an old women who is really a Goddess witch who sees that Olivia has traits of the creator of the OH Dimension and is sure Olivia is the one by the Ruby red ring she wears but also the magic kaleidoscope she carries with her along with her melodic voice that soothes and can draw you into her stories causing you to want to help her.
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My vision is to take my broken heart and turn it into successful art and have a larger platform from which to advocate for children’s rights.
What I learned here is a lot more thought goes into a character role than I realized.
What about this role would cause an actor to want to be known for it: This is a woman raised in a rural setting but careered in progressive one who returns to pursue a relationship from 30 years prior and try to understand the right wing swing of her hometown while assisting at a Red Cross shelter.
What makes this character one of the most interesting ones in the story: The high level of entertainment in the way she fumbles and assumes and comes to realizations and the transformational journey from sceptic to compassion.
What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the script: Two amazing scenes with unexpected outcomes: dropping the old flame coldly and dispensing compassion in a shelter
How was the role introduced in a way that sold it to an actor: a sophisticated woman with rural roots hardened by career challenges who understands her own heart after trying to understand her hometown…from cold to warm
What subtext did actor play: assuming siblings have ousted her based on politics, but learning how parents sabotaged their children
What is the most interesting relationships this character had: the closeness with the old flame; resistance to her siblings
How was this character’s unique voice presented: through her judgment of politics yet willingness to serve in disasters
What made this character special and unique: her charisma and willingness to understand.
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Daniel Turner’s Actor Attractors!
I just love getting in deep and creating compelling characters.
Activity: Creating Actor Attractors for my characters.
What I learned from doing this assignment is to create interesting things about the character in the beginning, and not just hope that the character is interesting when the story is done.
Lead Character: Colvile Franklin
Role: Protagonist
1. He is a church preacher/minister who becomes a police detective.
2. He changed from a minister to a policeman because he believes that he is ordained by God to fight evil and can do more with a more hands on approach.
3. He falls for a prostitute and shields her from harm like Jesus and the angry stone throwing mob. When he finally catches the Sect leader they have a very lively debate about Justice and Mercy and both realize that their thoughts are more similar than not.
4. Once a well regarded preacher and now a police detective, he is introduced to us as he is compelled by the moment to give a short but profound sermon to some colleagues and assailants at the station.
5. From gregarious to intense and focused to preaching a sermon.
6. He believes that he is doing the Lord’s work and there is a righteous confidence that stems from that.
7. He has fallen in love with a high-end prostitute that he started a relationship with when he was falling from the pulpit.
8. In his word of the day, he has a new word everyday that when asked what the word is its definition is attached to a small sermon. It has gotten to the point where even the criminals know and ask him what the day’s word is.
9. He was a well received preacher who fell from the pulpit and became a policeman so he could have a more hands on approach to battling evil.
Lead Character Name: Roland Young
Role: Antagonist
1. He is the ultra-charismatic leader of an underground cult with aspirations to change the world.
2. Whether you agree with him or not, he is a true visionary and the same vision that captivates the members of the sect also begins to intrigue the audience.
3. Being the flip side of the same coin as the detective, he motivates his people with an impassioned and profound speech to the members that clearly galvanizes and motivates them.
4. He is introduced when one of the members of the sect confronts him with doubts and he shifts the perspective of the member in such a profound way as to make him more of a believer than ever.
5. He goes from fatherly and empathetic, to smooth and charismatic to the wrath of God will come down on you.
6. He’s a motivator and a manipulator, always working at getting something.
7. He and the Detective are different sides of the same coin, so they end up having a very intense, while we pretend that we’re not like the other relationship.
8. He is always compelling and always making his point, whether you notice him doing it or not.
9. His unique vision for the world and his ability to make others see that vision and want to take part in making it come true.
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