Film Courage: Why are verbs so important to directing and acting?
Judith Weston, Coach, Teacher and Author: Because they express behavior
and that's what we're looking for we're looking for the behavior of the characters to tell the
story the behavior of the of the characters in interaction with each other their relationships
and their behavior in reaction to good news or bad news and the events of the of the plot
so and verbs are very important because they put the actors focus on the other actor
so if I'm deciding that my character should be angry or have been told that my character
is angry then my focus is on myself am I angry enough whereas if my I'm using the verb to punish
then I'm punishing the other person my focus is on you are you punished yet
I don't know I don't think you're punished enough so I'm gonna I'm gonna keep doing it okay and that
that keeps me going and it keeps it keeps the it keeps the anger crescendoing actually and I
have and not just crescendoing but having hills and valleys and ex expressive expressive nuance
okay so because I'm focused on you on your reaction rather than on me am I angry enough
that's what that that's the center of why verbs are so helpful and so what I call the verb family
I put a bunch of things in there the the the active verbs which you could make a list of demand
beg punish seduce flirt and courage right and what you're also called intentions a lot of these
things are used the terms are used differently by different people and then there's the objective
which is what the character wants in the scene and so strictly speaking the objective is what the
character wants the verb is what or intention is what they're doing to get it so if I want you to
to calm down okay then I might hint that I want you to calm down
maybe you could lower your voice a little bit
I'm not saying this to you obviously you have such a lovely sweet voice but uh or
but if and but what if I use the wrong verb what if I demand that you calm down calm down
well it's a it's a very unfortunate verb to use if you want somebody to calm down because
it's like with dogs right if dogs are barking and you tell them to stop barking you're just doing
what they want you to do they just think oh they like me barking they're barking back so anyway
people are like that too and so so demanding that somebody calmed down is is is is foolish
it doesn't work and yet people do it all the time you see it all the time certainly with their dogs
but but but also with with each other demanding that somebody calm down so people make mistakes
people act irrationally so verbs are very helpful for finding irrational behavior like it would be
irrational to demand that somebody calmed down but but characters and people do it all the time
so it's an opposite right it's opposite to the thing that would that will work
so verbs are great for okay but also the so the objective or the need and also the spine
there's a spine a character may have a spine for the whole for the whole or the whole script
and it may not it may not be the same as the as the scripts as the plot spine
can you explain what that is the spine the spine it's it's who the person is in a kind
of very basic level I like to say that I think that this that the person's spine a character's
spine is in place by the time they're eight years old so by the time well I had a disabled mother
which happened when I was four so a spine of putting the needs of other people ahead of my own
was just happened I didn't choose it but it happened right so those things and they follow
you throughout your life and you can still be a very assertive person which I am in some
ways but that there's it's something that it's it's in your emotional DNA it's a part of you
if that makes sense and and finding those things it it's helpful for finding who who the character
is who who are they really so verbs of course work great for comedy because opposites because
because opposites work great for comedy so if somebody is complaining about how they just they
somebody that their co-workers threw them a birthday party yeah like they threw me
a birthday party that could be funny right because it's inappropriate it's an inappropriate
it's incongruous and inappropriate verb for the subject matter of the that they're talking about
if we can just go back to spying for women I'm sorry to jump around but no that's fine I really
like that so if we take Forrest Gump there's two there's actually several great spines because
there's there's Forest there's Jenny there's Captain Dan or Lieutenant Dan sorry there's some
there's Bubba there's so many spines but if we just took the two main ones so we see that Forest
he he sort of has his own spine of seeming like the one that was sort of weak but he was actually
stronger than everybody else in many many ways and and always kind of coming out ahead and then
we have the spine of Jenny who unfortunately seemed to repeat itself a lot in her life
and and the mother played by Sally Field she had a spine of always kind of making sure that forest
was treated fairly and that he had it good so I think I'm now I'm understanding the spine because
at first I didn't know well I think I would say that forest forest Gump's spine is to take care
of people that's what I that's what strikes me is he takes he takes care of other people
that that's what he always does it's his another way to think of it is it's his habitual behavior
is to take care of people
I don't know that that's what just struck me and Jenny of course has a
strong self-destructive streak and sometimes people have a spine of punishing themselves
foreign for whatever reason there's always a reason
although of course it could be genetic sometimes people are born with certain proclivities and that
becomes the way that their their lives go now I'm going to start looking for the spine I like that
and it's a great analogy too because I think of the spine of a book almost and just yeah guiding
the people the important thing to remember is it's not something that the person chooses
it's but it describes them and it can be helpful even if it's a character and people don't know
what their spine is I mean when I said that about me I don't know if that's true I think
it is but but most of the time people don't know their own spine they don't think about it
and characters still know they're on spine but it still can be helpful if the actor does
and it still can be a tool that a that a director and and I think if a director was talking about
spying with an actor to to have it be kind of casual rather than saying okay let's sit
down and decide what your spine is I don't think that's because it starts to feel like
you're filling in blanks but but if it comes up about the scene well if you're saying well
there's almost this sense that that for a spine is to take care of other people
it's an opposite because he actually needed to be taken care of himself and of course that brings up
the mother it's maybe she did such a good job of taking care of him that he can he has this surplus
he has this this model of taking care and he has surplus resources to take care of others and I
don't know you start to feel like okay now that's a family and I can understand it a little bit
so just like in life how other people show us our spine in a movie other characters will
show the protagonist yes the relationships the relationships are where or where they come out.