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Breaking character

In theatre (especially in the illusionistic Western tradition), breaking character occurs when an actor ceases to maintain the illusion that they are the character they are supposedly portraying. This is considered unprofessional while performing in front of an audience or camera (except when the act is a deliberate breaking of the fourth wall). One of the most common ways of breaking character is corpsing, in which an actor loses their composure and laughs or giggles in a comedy scene or scene requiring ludicrous actions. If the breaking of character is particularly serious, it would normally result in an abandonment of a take in recorded or filmed drama.

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who found it difficult to act with Peter Sellers in The Return of the Pink Panther and maintain her composure. Several scenes showing her laughing at his antics remain in the film.[2][3]

Catherine Schell

The advent of DVD players, with the use of their precise pause and slow-motion functions, has made it far easier to spot breaks in character in motion pictures, and many internet sites collect such examples.[1]


Example:

in a rare example of breaking character for her, was forced to break character during filming of "Lucy and Viv Put in a Shower", a season 1 episode of The Lucy Show. In the climactic scene, the titular shower filled with water due to a drain malfunction, and Ball nearly drowned attempting to unplug it. Co-star Vivian Vance hastily reworked the script to allow Ball to recover her composure.[4] Ball's near-drowning was included in the finished episode, which was one of several from the series to lapse into the public domain.

Lucille Ball

Examples of actors breaking character on television include:

Virtual and gaming environments[edit]

Breaking character or corpsing is also being used more frequently to describe a participant-player who, having assumed the role of a virtual character or avatar and is acting within a virtual or gaming environment, then breaks out of that character.[17] For example, this could be a player-character behaving inappropriately within the social-cultural environment depicted by the virtual or gaming environment or the participant-player ceasing to interact-play (momentarily or entirely) leaving the character suspended and/or lifeless.

Fictional depictions of breaking character[edit]

In Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci, commedia dell'arte actor Canio kills his real-life wife and her lover onstage.

Out of character communication in the sociological theory of dramaturgy