The ability to work on a monologue is one of the most important skills an actor can learn. It can mean the difference between booking jobs and not booking them. It’s also a skill you must learn early on, as many drama schools require you to prepare more than one monologue script.
However, it can be confusing, especially as you don’t have another actor to react to.
Don’t worry! I’m here to help. Here are some very simple steps you can do to learn how to learn a monologue for actors.
Table of Contents
- Script Analysis
- Top Script Analysis Exercises:
Script Analysis
Script analysis is a crucial aspect of how to work on a monologue for actors, and it serves several important purposes in the process of creating a character and delivering a convincing performance:
- Understanding the Character: A thorough script breakdown helps actors deeply understand the character they are portraying. By dissecting the script, actors can uncover the character’s motivations, desires, fears, and background. This knowledge enables them to bring depth and authenticity to their performance.
- Building Empathy: Effective acting requires the ability to empathize with the character. Textual analysis helps actors connect with the character’s emotions, experiences, and struggles. This emotional connection allows actors to portray the character in a relatable and convincing manner.
- Interpreting Subtext: Scripts often contain subtext, which is the underlying meaning beneath the words spoken by the characters. Script analysis helps actors identify and interpret this subtext, allowing them to convey the character’s true thoughts and feelings even when they are not explicitly stated.
- Character Arc: Many characters undergo significant changes or development throughout a story. Script analysis helps actors trace the character’s arc, understanding how they evolve over time. This understanding allows actors to portray the character’s growth or transformation convincingly.
- Relationship Dynamics: Actors often interact with other characters in a script. Script analysis helps them understand the dynamics of these relationships, including power struggles, conflicts, and emotional connections. This understanding is crucial for creating believable on-screen or on-stage chemistry.
- Context and Setting: Understanding the given circumstances and setting of a scene is essential for creating a believable performance. Script analysis helps actors grasp the time, place, and circumstances in which their character exists, which informs their choices regarding movement, voice, and behavior.
- Motivation for Actions: Actors need to know why their character does what they do. Script analysis helps them identify the character’s objectives behind their actions and decisions. This understanding is essential for making choices that align with the character’s psychology.
Top Script Analysis Exercises:
Perceptions
One of the most important things you can garner from a script is your character’s perceptions of themselves and the world they live in. It can be very useful to make a list on:
- Everything your character says about themself
- Everything your character says about others
- Everything others say about your character
This will give you a solid basis on what to base your creative decisions and interpretation on.
5 W’s
The 5 W’s are a classic set of questions to ask actors in order to understand their character and their context. These questions are:
- Who am I?
- Where am I?
- When is it?
- What do I want?
- Why do I want it?
Actioning
Actioning for actors is when an actor takes a script and ascribes an “action” for each line. First, you need to figure out your objective and what you want in the scene. It can be helpful to break your monologue up into a beginning, middle and end in order to create a journey too.
Now, find actions for each line that help you achieve that objective. They should always be actions that affect another person.
So, rather than “I think”, use words like “I convince you”, “I belittle you,” or “I humor you”. They must always revolve around the other character.
If you want to find out more about script analysis, check out my guide on How to script.
Often you may be asked to work on a Shakespeare monologue too, especially for drama school. All of the above advice applies here too, but you can check out my post on Working On Shakespeare for more specific guidance.
Character Background
When figuring out how to work on a monologue for actors, it is of the utmost importance for an actor to know their character’s background. An actor’s work revolves around knowing what the character wants and why they want it.
Knowing their background can help us to discover these things. It can also give as an insight into why they do things the specific way that they do them, or help us make creative decisions on how to interpret them.
Here are some tools you can use:
Research
Research is one of the top tools an actor can use when understanding how to work on a monologue for actors. You may find information in your script that you don’t know much about.
This may be somewhere the character grew up, a time period they lived in, or a traumatic event they went through. One of the best ways to understand your character is to research the facts about things in their life that have made them who they are.
Character Biography
Writing a character biography can give you an opportunity to think about specific details about your character and their life. This is where you answer facts and questions about your character and their past.
For instance, you might think about what their parents are like, what their hobbies are, what their morning routine is like. All of this can help you build a picture of the building blocks of your character development.
Here is a great character biography template from myactorguide.com
Daydreaming
Another way you can learn about your character’s background is through daydreaming. Let your imagination run away with you as you imagine scenes from your character’s past.
You can either work on a particular event in their life, or you can close your eyes and just see what comes to you.
The important things here are not to force the narrative and to just let your imagination run away with you and also to imagine yourself as the character in the daydream. You’re not watching them live through it; you are them living through it.
Personal Connection
This may be one of the most important tools in your entire acting toolkit when thinking about how to work on a monologue for actors. Forming a personal connection to the character and the script is what will take your performance from two-dimensional to three-dimensional.
It is what turns a competent performance into a moving one. It is what turns craft into art. In order to do this, you must think about what your character and the story you’re telling mean to you personally.
Ask Yourself Why?
One of the most important things about making a personal connection is understanding why you want to play this role. What does it mean to you? What part of you feels seen by this monologue? Try to be specific. “I find it sad.” is not enough. Why does it make you sad? Why is it important to you to connect and express that sadness through this piece?
Dig as deep as you can to understand how you can get under the skin of the character and the monologue.
Uniqueness
Do you know what your greatest strength as an actor is? It is the fact that you’re you. Now, that may sound contradictory, as this whole artform seems to be about becoming someone else.
However, it is the parts of yourself you give to the character that will make it exciting, unique, and yours. So, what makes you unique? Are you witty? Bold? Rebellious? Shy? Thoughtful? Easily frightened?
Think about which of your traits you can lend to your character, and which ones you should leave out.
What’s Your Point?
This is similar to the point on why you want to do the monologue, but it takes it one step further. You are, hopefully, at some point, going to be performing your monologue in front of others. While you can perform alone in your room, there seems to be little point. Performance is meant to be shared.
So, while knowing what the monologue means to you is important, you also have to know why you want to share it with others. Basically – what do you have to say? What does the monologue touch inside of you that you need to express?
Think about all the things you’d say if you felt brave enough if you were given the opportunity. Well, here it is.
See what this story sparks within you, what your own opinions are on it, and allow yourself to communicate what you think about it.
Physicality
Physicality is one of the most crucial ways you can communicate everything you understand about your character and everything you want to say when exploring how to work on a monologue for actors.
Many actors like to do all of the internal work discussed above first so that they can base their physicality on it. However, many actors also find that physicality helps them make new internal discoveries about their character.
It is entirely up to you which order you work on things and how. Whichever way you go about it, giving your character a way of moving that is different from yours is crucial.
Whether these are minor details or a major shift away from yourself, you should always make clear and specific choices about the way your character moves. Here are some ways you can do that:
Attributes
A great way to communicate specific choices you’ve made about your character is to attribute them to different locations on your character’s body. The best way to do this is to first pick 3-5 character traits.
These may be traits such as “loving” or “unsure”. Then play around with placing these traits in specific areas of your body. What is it like to have loving hands? How do you express hands that are loving? How about your chest? Your hips? Your feet? You may find one location expresses something about your character more than another.
Do this one by one for all of your traits until you’ve settled on a separate bodily location for each of them. Now put them all together. You should have all your character traits displayed in your body. Try making them bigger or smaller. Make them exaggerated, then naturalistic. Play around until you find something that works for you.
Laban Efforts
Laban created a system of movement in which to qualify different types of movements. He called these efforts. We can use these to express character personality, state of mind or temperament.
These are the eight Laban effort:
Practice moving around the room in each of these efforts. Think about how they represent your character’s overall personality. Are they generally a glider or a puncher? Also, think about the situation your character is in during the scene.
Might that change the effort they are currently in? You could even try putting one over the top of another. For example, someone who is nervous but trying to appear calm. May be covering up a flick effort with an attempt at a glide effort. Play around and see what you can discover.
Animal Work
Another powerful exercise is to think about what animal your character might be like. When you have chosen one, observe that animal, either at the zoo, in its natural habitat, or through videos.
Then try to recreate that animal’s movements as accurately as possible. Be specific. When you have done this, try to humanize those qualities. How can you walk around as a human being and incorporate those animals’ movements into yours?
Voice
Another way to express your character’s personality when thinking about how to work on a monologue for actors is through your voice. While all text must be spoken clearly and understandably, it can also be a great creative tool too. Here are some exercises you can use to achieve this.
Background
The first thing to think about is how your character’s background might affect their voice. A big one is where they grew up, as this may mean they have a particular accent. However, you can also think about the time period they grew up in and their class status.
May they have been taught to speak in a particular way? How were they taught to use their voice growing up? How did their parents speak? In what ways did they need to use their voice when they were younger? Did they need to shout over a lot of siblings? Or did they need to make sure they never drew attention to themselves? All of these things can affect your character’s voice.
Expression
Another way to approach voice is to think about what they are attempting to express at that moment and how their personality affects that. Think about what they want and the actions they are using to get it.
How might they use their voice to achieve this goal? Are they expressing themselves freely, or are they covering something up? You could return to some of the movement exercises to explore voice too. How might a Laban effort be expressed through the voice? What character traits can you specifically express through your voice? Make 2-3 specific decisions about how you want to use your character’s voice in the monologue.
The Space
The final thing to think about when working out how to work on a monologue for actors is the space around you. This can often be quite different from acting in a film or play. You may be in a bare audition room or facing a camera in your room. How you use the space however can make a massive difference to how your monologue is received.
Environment
The first thing to think about is your character’s environment – the space that they are in. Creating this for yourself can help you immerse yourself in the character’s situation and lose yourself in the scene, as well as help you make decisions about your character’s actions.
Here are some steps in order to do this:
- Go through your senses one by one. Start thinking about what your character can see in the space around them. Be as creative and specific as possible, and add in lots of details. Think about what they mean to you. Then do it for what your character can hear, feel, smell and taste.
- Explore the space you’ve built. Imagine you are there now and literally physicalise being in that space. Walk up to objects. Pick them up, explore them. Smell them. Feel the texture of things. This is a great imaginative exercise in order to be specific about your space.
- Consider how the space may affect your character in the scene. Are they familiar with it? Do they feel comfortable with it? How might they move or act in this specific space? Improve and explore before settling on some choices you can use in your speech.
The Other Character/s
This is a really, really crucial part of preparing a monologue and can make a world of difference. When you are doing a monologue you are always talking to someone. Always. The details that you see about them are what will make them feel real.
- What does your character look like? Create them visually in your mind, in as much detail as possible. Do they have any attributes that are the same as anyone you know in real life?
- What is your relationship with them? What is that like? What do you think of them in this moment? This should have been worked on in your character background, but it’s especially important to know in a monologue situation.
- Where are they in the space? Are they close to you or far away. For an audition it’s a good idea to imagine them standing behind the panel so that you can deliver your monologue just over the panel’s head. For a self-tape, it’s a good idea to imagine them standing just behind and to the side of your camera.
- How is the other character behaving? While you don’t have another actor to react to, you can react to your imaginary version of the character. Often it can be more effective to give your character something to do rather than just standing there listening to you. Are they cleaning? Watching TV? Doodling? Also think about how they’re reacting to what you say – and see how that makes you react in turn. If they laugh at something you say, how does that make you react? If they roll their eyes, or start to cry, how does that affect you? Play around with it and see what you find most effective.
Let Brittany Guide You Through Your Monologue
Brittany from Opening Act has made a great video explaining how to break down a monologue. Check it out to learn more about performing a monologue.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I improve my monologue?
One of the best ways you can improve your monologue is being flexible and spontaneous. Don’t allow yourself to get fixed in one way of doing it. Keep coming back and seeing what new things you can find in it. Think of it in a different way. If you get an idea in the moment, go with it and see what happens. Simply allow yourself to play.
What do casting directors look for in a monologue?
Casting directors look for a number of things in a monologue. First of all, they just want to see if you are believable as the character. Do you suit this role? After that, they want to see creativity. How do you do this role differently? Think about what is your personal connection to the role and how you can let that shine through. Overall, they want to see truth. Can you connect to this character and their circumstances and express something truthful in this moment.
Where do you look during a monologue?
If you are in the room with an auditioner, it is best to direct it over their head unless they instruct you otherwise. On a self-tape, deliver it just to the side of your camera.
You’ve got this!
Performing a monologue can be a daunting task, but with all the skills on this list you are sure to master it. Time can be a really big factor when preparing a monologue so remember to plan carefully so you can do your best work in the time available. You may not have time to do all the exercises on this list, but hopefully you can pick some favourites and keep them in your back pocket.
If you’re learning your monologues for drama school and want to know the differences between each school, check out my guide on How To Choose The Right UK Drama School For You.
Thank you for reading, I hope you’ve found this guide on how to work on a monologue for actors useful, and break a leg out there!
