What I Understand About a Character Before I Speak

A meditation on presence, body, intention - all the invisible layers that come before performance.

Before I say anything as a character, I try to understand how she takes up space - or doesn’t. Whether she arrives early or late. Whether she makes herself smaller in a room, or claims the chair with both elbows and a coffee she doesn’t finish.

It’s not something I write down. I just listen to the silence around her - and how she seems to move inside it.

I’m often cast in roles where something is being held in. A tension just under the surface. So I’ve learned to notice what a person does before they speak.How they breathe when no one’s watching. Whether their voice sits in their chest or their throat. Whether their smile is reflexive or earned.

None of this is mystical - it’s just attention. Some of it comes from drawing, I think. You learn to observe without interrupting. Let the subject be what it is. Let it shift. Try not to decide too soon.

On the set of Born Evil, I played a nurse who says very little - and still, her choices mattered. How long she stayed in the room. What she understood that no one said aloud. How she carried herself when she was alone. That kind of role - quiet, unresolved - is a gift to an actor who likes listening more than explaining. We didn’t rehearse much, but I remember feeling very still on that set. The kind of stillness that makes the frame feel larger, somehow. I like that kind of work. You get to build the world from the inside out.

I don’t necessarily build a character by imagining their entire backstory. Not always. Sometimes I just need to know how they hold a cup. Whether they drink when they’re nervous. Whether they tidy things without realizing it. That tells me enough. Speech comes last.

Some people prepare by filling in every blank. And that works for them. But I’ve found that if I leave a little space - a breath, a pause, something not-yet-decided - the character finds me in it.

And then we start to speak.

📌 More of my recent work is here: www.livhansen.net/recent-work

Still from Born Evil, in a quiet hallway moment before things turn.