Advanced Acting Technique – Primary Emotions

I want you to close your eyes and think about a highly emotional situation you’ve encountered. This may be an argument with a parent, an emotionally-charged breakup with your partner or the moment you realized you won the lottery. No matter what the circumstance, there was a raw and real emotion attached to it.

As an actor, you may call upon true emotions in life to help cultivate the emotional map of a scene. The great acting coach, Stanislavski, referred to this calling upon true emotions as primary emotions.

Throughout my time as a professional actor, I have learned that engaging in primary emotions will help cultivate not only the main emotional chorus of a scene, but also the backing-emotions that help support this primary emotion.

What is a Primary Emotion

While the aforementioned definition primary emotions is accurate, there are many sub-definitions for this type of acting technique. Think about it, at any given moment within your life you are experiencing some type of emotion. You can be happy, depressed, anxious, nervous, lustfull, starving, neglected, humiliated or determined; however, what are these emotions?

Don’t answer with the dictionary definition of these emotions, but what are these emotions to you? Everyone can define their sensation of anxiety, happiness, lust and humiliation in a unique and individualized manner.

Uncovering Your Character’s Primary Emotions

While you’re reading a scene, it is important to uncover the primary emotions within the scene. Now, don’t simply say, “Oh, he’s having an argument with his mother so he’s frustrated.” Rather, delve deeper than this. The primary emotion is NOT the surface level emotion. It is the emotion that acts as the engine for the other emotions to run. Using the example above, your character is having an argument with his mother,; and while his surface level emotion may be frustrating, the primary emotions according to this character may include: desperation, neglect, anger or hurt.

The only way to truly uncover to the primary emotions of a character is to analyze not only the scene, but also the relationship with the other “person” or his relationship to objects within the scene.