You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure. James 4:2-3 (NLT)

The study of acting is really the study of humanity. To portray a character realistically, you have to understand who this person is, how they think, how they talk, and how they move. You have to understand what makes this character, this person tick. Great actors peel away the layers of a character and get to the heart of who he or she really is. The deeper you understand the character, the more fully you can embody him or her on stage.

As I step into a role, one of the first things that I do is a process called “beating the script.” I break my scenes into “beats” or sections determined by what the character is thinking. The underlying premise is that the character wants or desires something at all times. His or Her words are driven by an internal desire. If you identify the characters ultimate “want” then you can begin to connect the dots of “wants” in each moment of the scene from beginning to end. Then, when you play the scene, you don’t play the words, you play the wants.

What’s interesting about this process is that the truth of it is identified right in God’s Message. It’s in today’s chapter. We are all driven by our wants. We each have deep, core desires that determine the things we do and say each day. We want to be secure. We want to be loved. We want to be rich. We want to be famous. We want [fill in the blank]. As we live in relationship each day, those motivations lead us to thoughts, ideas, words, interactions and behaviors.

So, what is it I really want? That is a question with which we each need to grapple, and find the answer for ourselves. When we do, a lot of other things come into focus.