People sometimes ask how I find a character. Honestly, it's rarely one big idea — it's a stack of small, specific choices. A walk. A way of holding a coffee cup. The thing a person does with their hands when they're lying.

Specificity is the whole game. A "gritty character actor" isn't a type, it's a habit of noticing — watching real people closely enough to steal the details that make a role feel lived-in instead of performed.

That's the part of the job nobody sees on the call sheet, and it's my favorite part of the work.