Uta Hagen's 7 Steps to Creating Your Character

The 6 Steps to creating a character:

1. Who am I? Who is the CHARACTER?
◦ What is my present state of being?
◦ How do I perceive myself?
◦ What am I wearing?

2. What are the Circumstances? Where am I?
◦ What time is it? (The year, the season, the day? At what time does my selected life
begin?)
◦ Where am I? (What city, neighborhood, building, and room? Or what landscape?)
◦ What surrounds me? (The immediate landscape? The weather? The condition of the
place and the nature of the objects in it?)
◦ Where am I coming from? What just happened?
◦ What are the immediate circumstances? (What has just happened, is happening? What
do I expect or plan to happen next and later on?)

3. What are my RELATIONSHIPS?
◦ How do I stand in relationship to the circumstaances, the place, the objects, and the
other people related to my circumstances?
◦ Who am I with and how do I feel about him/her?

4. What do I want? What's my OBJECTIVE?
◦ What is my main objective? My immediate need or objective?j
◦ What do I want from this person?

5. What is my OBSTACLE?
◦ What is in the way of what I want? How do I overcome it?

6. What do I have to do to get what I want?
◦ How can I achieve my objective/ What's my behavior? What are my actions?

7. What are the STAKES?
◦ How bad do I want it? How much will I risk to get it? Will I risk my life or not even a
dollar?