5 Ways Improv Training Will Improve Your Acting Career – Part 3: Creating Characters

We discussed in our previous post (5 Ways Improv Training Will Improve Your Acting Career Part 2:) Casting Directors how Improv Training can help you directly improve your auditions.

Here’s an exciting new well to draw from for creating comedy and drama:

Improv Training and Exercises empower you to create unlimited Characters!

Have you ever wondered how to create characters for auditions, plays or shows? Or wanted to create new characters from places you didn’t even know you had? If you’re reading this, I bet you have.

You probably already do some characters. Maybe you have a silly character voice you do with your friends or family. Or maybe you create characters when you breakdown a script where you need to play someone other than yourself.

Or maybe you’re like me and you like jumping onto stage committed to playing someone other than myself… and you just leap and see what comes out.

Some characters will reveal themselves to you ONLY through the process of improvisation. And they are just waiting for you to discover them.

Whether the character you play is very similar to you, or wildly different from you, improv creates some really simple and fun ways to play and experiment with creating characters. In fact, we have 2 full video learning modules complete with character exercise videos devoted to this in our Online Improv Course Become an Improv Wizard.

Maybe you’ve never created a character. Or maybe you’ve developed many characters, but are interested in finding new and deep wells to draw new characters from.

Using improv to develop characters is a liberating and delightful way to work.

Improv can not only show you how to create characters, but can take you through the creation process step-by-step to mold, shape, and experiment with these created beings.

Unscripted Movies and TV Shows

There are also many movies that are built through improvisation, often called unscripted comedies. Such gems include This Is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, to name a few of my favorites.

Create your Own Series with Improvised Characters

A character that I get cast as often  in films, TV and Commercials was developed using improvisation, and refined using improvisation as well. I use this character often, and using improv I can also test and dial up or dial down the tone of the character for different tones and styles of projects.

So I created a YouTube Webseries based on one of my improvised characters called Rolf Reviews. This character and series then spawned a Tiktok channel @rolfreviews with over 80k followers, got verified on Tiktok, and attracted a deal for an animated mini-series called Rolf & Willies Machine of Awesomeness. All based on this character created, refined, and used through improv!

Here’s a fun example featuring “Rolf”, a character I created through improv in action.

 So whether or not you’re eager for new characters, or nervous to give it a try, I promise you it will be fun and rewarding.
In the next post, we’ll talk about #4 on our list of 5 Ways Improv Training Will Improve your Acting Career:

Improv increases your imagination, which is an actor’s deep well for creating characters and auditions

>> Click here to read part 4 about improving your imagination

"Become an Improv Wizard" is a PROVEN STEP-BY-STEP ONLINE IMPROV COURSE to Build CONFIDENCE, UNLEASH CREATIVITY, and BECOME FEARLESS through Improvisation

Lincoln Hoppe is an actor, writer, director, and father of 5. He is the the Co-Founder of Improv Wizards training school and Online Courses and Co-Director of the Society Comedy Troupe.