Lesson 4 Assignments

[Bent Hanlen]

Movie Title: Forrest Gump

Lead Character Name: Forrest Gump

Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role? He influenced iconic history in the narrative. Yet it is nothing to this character. He only cares about the woman he loves and can’t have in his life.
What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? He forms the styles of historic figures throughout his life.
What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? He influences the highest people in the government. All the way down to the smallest.
How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? He is a simple thinking man who accomplishes incredible things.
What is this character’s emotional range? quiet yet you can read the emotions in the face.
What subtext can the actor play? When he is interacting with famous people it means nothing to him but around the woman he loves, he is more animated.
What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? He cares for one woman and doesn’t look at others.
How is this character’s unique voice presented? through stories of his adventures in life. They don’t form him, its other way around.
What makes this character special and unique? his heart is genuine and as an adult he still exudes innocence in his heart.
(Fill in a scene that shows the character fulfilling much of the Actor Attractor model.)
The scene of saving his soldiers and remaining calm under fire. He receives a medal and it isn’t lighting him up like the woman he loves does..

[Diane Keranen]

Actor Attractors

What I learned doing this assignment is that each and every bit of the script has heavy lifting to do.

Movie Title: Traffic

Lead Character Name: Robert Wakefield, a newly nominated “drug czar” in the drug war between the U.S. government and Mexican drug cartels.

Genre: Drama. This is a published version of the shooting script purchased in paperback form. Published in 2000 by Newmarket Press in New York.

1. Why would an actor WANT to be known for this role? The role takes a character through a wide range of personal realities from believing he is a powerful judge at the start to realizing how powerful addiction is at the end resulting in his recognition that the “war on drugs” is whole ineffective the way it is being waged.
2. What makes this character one of the most interesting characters in the movie? The character is in a powerful government position to fight the drug war while his daughter is a drug addict.
3. What are the most interesting actions the Lead takes in the movie? He meets with his predecessor who gives a surprise assessment of the position; he is bombarded by lobbyists with conflicting goals at a social gathering; he learns and is surprised that his wife and daughter have views that conflict with his new job; tries ineffective punishment when daughter knows a kid who overdosed and argues with his wife about what to do; meets with DA to make the case go away because it would be embarrassing and is confronted with the idea that his daughter could be on something too; goes to border to learn about enormous amount of drugs getting in; asks for out-of-the-box ideas to fight this battle; seeks info on his counterpart in Mexico; in denial that daughter needs help and clashes with wife; catches his daughter doing drugs in her bathroom and is stunned at how much drug paraphernalia she has and puts her in rehab; takes daughter’s friend Seth to help locate his daughter after she left rehab and gets a big wake-up call from Seth about street-level drug war; Robert secretly follows Seth who leads him to his daughter finding her passed out in a hotel room with a middle aged man intent on having sex with the extremely high daughter; gives a presser and tries to deliver a prepared speech that he knows is filled with posturing so he stops and walks out of the pressor and presumably his job; goes to therapy group with his wife and daughter.
4. How is this character introduced that could sell it to an actor? He’s a confident judge sure he’s doing his part in punishing drug-related crime.
5. What is this character’s emotional range? Confident/arrogant to frustrated/determined to shocked to defeated to unsure but committed to recovery.
6. What subtext can the actor play? I’m the face of the war-on-drugs and I know I can make a difference while battling the newly discovered drug addiction in his own home.
7. What’s the most interesting relationships this character has? His work relationships where the absurdity of the task is known and his relationship with his wife.
8. How is this character’s unique voice presented? His arrogance/confidence is situated at the start, his perception of his own arrogance is quickly brough into his focus, his also perceptive of contradictions that begin to chip at his confidence. These things make him ready to see the reality of the drug world rather than trying to stick to a status quo that isn’t working.
9. What makes this character special and unique? He grows personally over the course of the story.

A scene that shows the character fulfilling much of the Actor Attractor model:

SCENE A223:

INT. ROBERT’S CAR – DAY
Robert and Seth are parked across the street from Sketch’s building. They watch people, mostly white people, get what they need.

SETH
I don’t know, maybe we missed her.

ROBERT
I can’t believe you used to bring my daughter here, to this place.

SETH
Hey man, back the fuck up. To this place. What’s that shit? Right now, all over this country, a hundred thousand white people from the suburbs are driving around downtown asking every black person they see, You got any drugs? You know where I can get drugs? What kind of effect you think that has on the psyche of a black person, on their possibilities? If you sent a hundred thousand black people into your neighborhood, Indian Hills, and they asked every white person they see, hey, you got any drugs?, within a day, your friends and their kids would be selling. It’s market forces, man. The product’s marked up three hundred percent. You can go out on the street and make five hundred bucks in two hours and then do whatever you want for the rest of the day. You think white people would still be going to law school?

There’s a beat.

ROBERT
You’re starting to piss me off. Get out of the car.

Robert and Seth get out of the car and walk across the street.

End Scene: As Seth talks, we can see Robert’s arrogance waver and his confidence turn to doubt.