Development of the character

As a part of my acting technique I began by making this table which highlights when my character has said something about herself or her situation or when another character has. I have then gone on to put the page reference down and whether or not it was a fact or an opinion.

My character is high class, and high status. However, her status is through her husband and not from herself. She has a set of traditional American 'home values'. Her time appears to be taken up by looking after her daughter and with moderate charitable work. We find this out from Sarah and her daughter on page 69. As the character developed we begin to see how unhinged she is within her mental state. Which leads her to commit and evil crime. It is seemingly more shocking for a woman to commit a crime like this than a man, it is even more heart wrenching when the crime is against a woman's own child. However, statistically speaking it is far more common than we think. Out of the 49 women on death row, 11 of them have killed children. A psychologist who studies women who kill children said 'We should detach from the idea of universal motherhood as natural and see it as a social response'. 

This quote feels relevant to my character as I feel she would have been brought up traditionally, with a housewife mother, and was brought up to do the same. However, she clearly wasn't meant for it. Although she is a seemingly capable mother she is in fact unable to cope with her own mental state and adapt to the differing opinions and values of her daughter.

The information I can find from my character from the script tells me about the conflicted and eventually tragic relationship I have with my daughter. It is important me and the actor playing my daughter develop this relationship to be truthful. We need to make sure our decisions we make with the scene come from listening and responding to one another. This way our scenes won't be boring and set in stone but they should be different each time.

I think my character would dress extremely conservatively. I see her wearing a pearl necklace and lots of high neck pastel cardigans and clothing. We were told we might have to costume ourselves in order to save money for a dynamic set. I have been looking for images online of what my character could look like.

This is a character from the show desperate housewives which resembles some of my character in the sense she holds extreme traditional home values. However, she is slightly unhinged and the relationship with her children is constantly strained and challenged. Also watching her speak has been helping me to develop my american accent. I think the way she dresses suits my character.




The film 'Carrie' which is a remake of a 1976 film, is soon to be released. The film shows a damaged daughter and a psychotically religious mother. I think it will help me to watch this film, to demonstrate an extreme mother daughter relationship. This may be able to feed in to the decisions made in rehearsals by my character and the character of my daughter.