By Daniele J Suissa

In my previous article I talked about the actor’s homework and the need to Score. 

Today I would like to talk about the first tool of that scoring process: The Character Main Objective. CMO 

Different books, different teachers, different methods, you may have heard the CMO expressed differently. Two of the most common are: 

What does the character NEED?

What does the character WANT? 

Well to me they are not the same and I have separated the conscious WHAT THE CHARACTER WANTS and the unconscious WHAT THE CHARACTER NEEDS. 

In real life, every time we ACT (commit an action) it is with a conscious knowledge of what we WANT. To seduce, to convince, to take a chance….. But when to seduce is the conscious WANT it is not always clear to us that what we really NEED is to belong. I may WANT to convince you shutting off, even to my self, the fact that my real need is to win. 

So you will ask why I am making such a case of all this. Well, it is because as a strong believer in Neuro Linguistic Programming, I think that we can change our behavior by our use of language. 

So if as an actor I am precise and know that I must look for what my character WANTS: I will find to convince and, that is the struggle the audience we will see in my performance until, at the end, they discover another facet of my character and that what I really NEEDED was to win. 

If I start my homework asking my self what does my character need, and because I am not stupid, I conclude that my character NEEDS to win and that is what I ACT upon, I have just burnt a beautiful layer of my characters life and struggle. 

I am not only convinced of what I am saying, I experience it every time I direct. Leading my actors to work on what the Character WANTS, sometimes even hiding to them what the character really NEEDS.  As it remains unconscious to us in life I WANT IT TO REMAIN UNCONCIOUS TO THE CHARACTER. However it is my responsibility, as a director, to know the difference so that I cannot deprive my audience of this richness in the experience of watching the performance and THE STORY.

I am sure this statement will create lots of controversy.  Please, if it does, actors directors, teachers, lets open a forum right here on this NoHo Arts District site. We have so much to learn from each other. I do not claim to have an absolute universal truth but I have faith in my method and I am ready to have a constructive dialogue on it.  

Daniele J Suissa

International Award Winning Theater and Film Director-Producer

Founder of the Academy of Converging Arts and of The Directors Studio, Daniele is the author of “The Director as A Storyteller, The art of Mise en Scene.”

Born in Morocco, educated in Paris and New York, she has in her extensive career directed 30 plays, 18 films, over 200 hundred commercials and co-produced 27 movies of the week with major European partners. She has received numerous international awards.  While developing her next feature film based on a French play she directed in 1979, Ms. Suissa teaches Directing at UCLA, USC and her Directors Studio at CBS and privately coaches and mentors writers, producers, actors and directors. She is also the former Dean of the Los Angeles Film School.

“My ambition is to help you free yourselves of all the doubts and anxieties that do not belong to the legitimate anguish of an artist.”