Do you have any idea how many actors are intimidated by performing Shakespeare? It’s an overwhelming number—hell, you might include yourself in that camp. There’s a sense that the material is somehow lofty, important. Actors want to do it justice, and therefore shy away from getting into the nuts and bolts of the text and giving it a go. It’s how a lot of actors tend to feel about an iconic role from film, television or (particularly) theatre. How do you go about performing Romeo, Blanche DuBois, John Proctor or Miss Julie when so many actors have done such incredible things before you showed up? This is the task we set ourselves today. Let’s talk about how to act an iconic role.
Acting an iconic role requires work and preparation. Script analysis is paramount, as it will help you unlock the surrounding text and delve into the complexity of the character. No iconic role is without its surrounding elements, so treat your work as a team effort by utilising your co-stars and, most importantly, your director. Finally, maintain the perspective that no matter how famous the character might be, they are totally reliant on your acting skill and personal interpretation to come to life. Treat an iconic role the same as any other.
It’s hard to think about any advice truly capping off this kind of task—the best way is honestly to play an iconic role and learn from your experience. That aside, what we can offer up are some solid, foundational techniques and strategies that should help you to feel at least somewhat prepared for the role—and challenge—of a lifetime.
What is an Iconic Role?
You know ’em when you see ’em. No, we can do better than that, although it’s likely the simplest answer there is.
Iconic roles are famous. Iconic roles are complex. They’re the sorts of thing that exhibit range from an actor portraying them, and they usually sit within an equally famous work. Funnily enough, an iconic role is not necessarily the lead. Iago is a secondary character in Othello, as is Biff in Death of a Salesman. But they are, nonetheless, pivotal characters within their surrounding narratives. They drive the plot and stick in the minds of the audience.
Perhaps for a role to be truly iconic, they have to transcend the work in which you find them. You may never have seen the play Hamlet to know of its lead character. And you may not even know his name, but odds are you know his most famous soliloquy:
One final thought on what constitutes an iconic role. For all the fame and recognition that we can heap upon Shakespeare’s mopey Danish prince, we do keep returning to him. And while the text of Hamlet is the same, the character changes from actor to actor, production to production. Hamlet evolves, by way of the performers who portray him—and who those performers are.
An iconic role is not just famous, interesting or challenging. It invites innovation from actors playing them: it provokes them to step up and take ownership.
How to Prepare for an Iconic Role
So when you think about how to act an iconic role, start by taking the ‘iconic’ out of it. What’s your process as an actor, regardless of the role? What’s in your toolkit of skills and methodologies? Don’t think of playing a famous character as giving yourself to them: you’re making them in your own image. Establish ownership and build your confidence.
Auditioning
Auditioning’s arguably the hardest part. This is the stage where you have to prove you understand the requirements of the character, while also signalling that you’re ready to tear them down and rebuild them if necessary. If you picture yourself as a scientist setting up the lab to build this franken-creature, the audition is your very first experiment. Be bold, dazzle, and try not to seem too mad (at to begin with.)
The audition stage is a nice opportunity to test the waters with your director. What kind of vision do they have of the character and the play? If it’s not something you can glean from the way they approach the audition (assuming you’re in-person and not simply sending a tape through) you can ask them their opinion of the character outright. At the very least, it gets the conversation flowing, and shows the care with which you take the assignment.
And if your interpretation clashes with that of the creative team, that’s all right. Better to know early, and to make the call on whether or not to pursue your idea or be guided elsewhere.
Research and Preparation
You can never do enough script analysis when preparing for an iconic role. Think back on all the famous actors who once stood in your shoes, looking at the same words you hold in your hands. They had exactly the same roadmap you do now: don’t waste a word or punctuation mark.
The best advice we can give at this stage is to treat the role like any other. Beat out your script, study the text, find your character’s objectives and plot their actions. For a lot of this kind of analytical work, you’re likely to have an advantage because you’ll know the character. So make sure you dig deeper: find the subtext that lies at the heart of the play, and let your interpretation be driven by that.
Rehearsal
In rehearsal, be open to input and change. If you have the kind of close relationship to the character that comes from preparation, you may find yourself quite protective of what you’ve determined about them.
Remind yourself that the opinions and provocations of your castmates and director will only help you to humanise the character so many see as larger-than-life. That can happen in the analytical stage, when the character is the centre of the universe. Once you’re in the rehearsal room, the play’s the thing. They need to fit into the story world, otherwise all your good work will overwhelm the rest of the narrative.
Performance
When it comes to performance, ask yourself why we, as audiences, care about iconic characters. We know Romeo and Juliet are doomed, that Willy Loman snuffs it and Oedipus tears out his eyes. We don’t buy tickets because we’re masochists. We buy tickets to these stories because we’re drawn to what is human about these characters. Especially those whose fate is sealed.
As an actor playing an iconic role, your job is to bring the humanity to the part. This is what keeps people coming back to Elsinore: we can’t watch Hamlet save himself, but we love to watch him try.
Don’t feel the need to ‘carry’ the character or the story. Keep it human, keep it truthful. The rest of the piece will work around you.
Should I Watch a Famous Actor Play My Part?
Really, this is entirely up to you. A lot of actors don’t like to be influenced by an existing performance. It can be easy to fall back on another actor’s choices, especially when you know the work well. It’s a particular issue for actors doing iconic roles or scenes for self-tapes: all too often they end up with a bad impression of the original character.
Our advice is to watch another performance if you think it might provoke or inspire you. But never watch it to solve problems, otherwise you’ll end up copying what the other person did. If your performance is similar because you’ve made the same choices with the character—that’s a horse of a different colour. Just be sure you can show your math for how you got there.
An Iconic Role as Practice
At the start of this article, we made a throwaway comment about learning from the experience of playing an iconic role. While you may not have a national tour of King Lear to step into, there’s nothing stopping you cranking out the geezer at home. Practice iconic roles as an actor and you’ll prepare yourself for the real thing.
Acting classes are a great place to crank out some of the greats, particularly as you’ll have the benefit of your teacher’s knowledge to help guide you. But you could just as easily tackle parts at home in a scene study group, or even alone in your living room.
Here at StageMilk, our Scene Club membership offers you personalised feedback once a month from industry professionals. There is no limit to what you send us! Speaking personally for a moment, I’ve seen some incredible work done by actors who saw a part made famous by Daniel Day-Lewis and thought: “Yeah, gimme a go with that.” Anything at all you can do to keep yourself challenged, keep yourself working.
Conclusion
So much of what we’ve covered in this article comes down to one thing: confidence. Build your confidence as an actor by setting yourself the challenge of an iconic role. (Or even a bit of Shakespeare every morning.) It’ll help you remember that writers create plays for actors to bring to life. Without somebody like you, they’re dead trees on shelves.
So think about the titans, think about the greats. Pick your white whale of a role and crack it open. You have everything to gain.
Good luck to you.
