To successfully convey the pain of a character, whether it be emotional or physical, you will need to emote with appropriate body language, facial expressions, and words. Your ability to convey the pain of your character will depend upon your understanding of that character, your empathy with that character, and your capacity to remain present as you allow the series of reactions to unfold.
Study Real Life Incidents of Pain
A frequent mistake actors make when conveying physical pain is to reproduce an immediate, obvious reaction. Physical pain occurs on a spectrum of intensity, from paper cuts to gunshots, but the immediate, natural response to physical pain in the body is disbelief, or pause. It takes a moment for the mind to process pain.
A good place to study this response is in children. For example, when toddlers trip and fall down, they frequently do not cry right away, but rather take a moment to understand that they have fallen and hurt themselves. You will also notice that the severity of their reaction does not always equate with the severity of their pain. Other factors, such as a desire for reassurance that they're okay, or a need for attention from a parent, often modifies their reaction to the pain they experience.
To replicate the experience of pain for your character, try to imagine how long it takes your character to process information and what the circumstances are when the pain occurs. Understanding the context for your character's physical pain, combined with the character's personality traits, will help you determine how best to emote your character's physical and emotional pain.
Study Personal Experiences with Pain
Take an inventory of times you have felt pain in your life and study the relevant episodes. If your character is experiencing a painful emotional loss, say through the breakup of a relationship, examine times in your own life when you have felt a similar loss and look for universal truths. What reactions did you have to your own pain that you suspect are true for all people? What did you feel in your body? Pain is a vulnerable state to be in, and applying universal truths of vulnerability to your character's situation will help build a full reaction to the pain he or she is experiencing.
Remain Present While in Character
Anticipating pain is one of the biggest mistakes novice or bad actors make when emoting. For example, if a script indicates that a character learns his wife is leaving him, a bad actor frequently hears the news and jumps directly to extreme emotions of rage or hysteria. Unless the character is drunk, or already in a heightened emotional state, this reaction is not realistic, as it takes varied amounts of time for most people to process the news they are hearing and the pain they are feeling. Shock, numbness, and disbelief would be appropriate reactions to the pain of being abandoned, but many actors skip those emotions for less nuanced, less believable responses.
To better understand the nuances of your character's pain, explore his or her emotions before the pain occurs. What emotional state is the character in? How easily can the character process emotional information? If the pain is physical, what precedes the physical pain that he or she experiences? Is the character taken by surprise, similar to walking into a glass door, or is the character imagining the pain before it occurs, as in the case when a band-aid is being ripped off? Understanding remain present and not allowing yourself to anticipate or "get ahead" of the pain will help you experience your character's pain in real time and make space for you to give a multi-layered, realistic performance.
Avoid Derivation
While you look for real life representations of pain to better understand how your character is feeling, make sure to avoid copying a copy. Watching television shows or movies for examples of how people react to pain is detrimental to building an authentic representation of your character's pain. Seek out authentic examples of pain, rather than other actors' interpretations of pain, as guidelines for appropriate emotional and physical responses to your character's pain.
