Laura Strugar-Smith - a script from an actress' point of view
Wednesday, September 14, 2011

There are many people who will read a script when a movie is about to be made. I’ve found a lot of information about how to write to impress a potential buyer, but very little about how to write a script that will work for everybody else involved.

So I decided to check around in my network and ask them.

The very talented acress Laura Strugar-Smith from Walking the Graveyard was very kind and answered my questions for this blog. She has moved from the USA and lives today in the Czech Republic.

Question: When you as an actress read a script, what do you look for?

Answer: I look for a woman that I connect with. We all have 1000 faces inside us, but we usually only show a few of them in our lives. Sometimes a new face is in a character that I don't normally or ever get to show. I look for the challenge of letting that face out and expressing itself within the script that was written.



Q: What kind of information do you need to create your character?

A: I look for my character's reaction to others around her. Hopefully I will find clues in the dialogue as to how the writer saw the character as they were creating her. Having direct access to the writer is always a plus. It's great to ask questions about where they got the ideas for particular scenes or what was their inspiration: an event, music, emotion....etc.

Q: Is the script the main source for inspiration, or do you create your character from other sources too?

A: I definitely use other sources. I research the location, the time period, the art, the culture. Often I use music. A well developed playlist of the character's mentality is always important. I can play it when the crew is setting lights or yelling about sound. I can keep in my head, in my character and feel the character. It allows me to focus when I'm walking around town thinking about the story and when I'm on set working.

　

If I know that the story takes place in a certain location, I read the local newspaper to get idea of how that location thinks, how the community acts. If it's a period piece, I study the culture of the time or the religious views, political views. It's also important to know what the news was in those days. What were people talking about? Where were they coming from?



Q: What would you say is the most common mistakes screenwriters do?

A: I think that if a writer is a certain sex, it is often difficult to know how the opposite sex might react to something. I've found this to be a common problem. I even see this in books that I read. It's important to run stories by other eyes I think. I try to make myself available to help with this when I can.



Q: From an actress’ point of view, what would you say is often missing?

A: I think women are written too often to be beautiful or perfect or looking for someone to save them. All women have a not so pretty side, a part of them that would not be considered standard for "the fairer sex." This may just be a USA thing though.



Q: And finally, language, how important is the way the script is written?

A: As a native English speaker living in the Czech Republic and teaching English, language is very important. Sometimes idioms or expressions are used that are not an English expression. It's not common, and it doesn't sound right. When I'm working on something where the writer is not native English, they have, in the past allowed me to reword my lines to make it more natural. Of course it's important to not ruin the writer's script. It must remain intact. But I wouldn't write something in any other language, no matter how good I was at it, without first running it by a native speaker. I think it makes a script more professional looking.

Photo belongs to Laura