A Dramatic Need
In his books on screenwriting, Syd Field writes that the core trait of all great characters is the character’s “dramatic need.” In Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo’s “dramatic need” is to return the Ring to Mount Doom. Who and what Frodo has to overcome to get there—that is the story. Without a dramatic need, a character cannot persist through a story’s relentless series of obstacles, problems, and conflicts. Having a dramatic need—that is the theme of this SIX at 6…
Like Taking Candy From A Baby
Kobe Bryant went to the NBA straight out of school, and as soon as he got to the league, he said he knew he was going to win a lot of championships. “What I found was that a lot of guys played for financial stability,” Kobe said. “When they got to the NBA, they got that financial stability. And when they got that financial stability, the passion, the work ethic, and the obsessiveness was gone.” The dramatic need was gone, “and once I saw that, I thought, ‘This is going to be like taking candy from a baby. No wonder Michael Jordan wins all these championships.’”
If You’re Really Meant To Do It…
Matt Damon was asked if he would let his kids pursue acting careers. To answer, he provided some context. Damon and Ben Affleck were neighbors growing up. They both knew at an early age that they wanted to be actors. And not only did their own parents tell them not to do it, Damon said, but each other’s parents told them not to do it. “We were told, explicitly, ‘Don’t do it,’” Damon said. “Ben’s mom told me, ‘Don’t do it,’ you know what I mean?” “So I do think,” Damon says, to answer the original question, “if you’re really meant to do it, it doesn’t matter what anybody says.”
Tony Hawk’s Desperation
Tony Hawk was the first skateboarder to ollie into his aerial tricks. “It wasn’t like I was trying to create a movement,” he said. “It was because I was desperate.” It was because he was too small and too skinny “to get the inertia needed to get in the air like other skaters.” Because he had a dramatic need to get in the air like other skaters, Hawk changed skateboarding forever.
How To Become A Successful Film Director
In early 1992, an aspiring filmmaker asked James Cameron, how do you become a successful film director? His movie Terminator 2 was the top-grossing movie of 1991, so Cameron, who had no formal film education, was arguably the best person in the world to ask. He replied, “If you have to ask somebody how to become a film director, you’ll probably never do it.” Cameron added that he says this to everyone who asks that question because to be a director, you need a dramatic need. “The film industry,” he explains, “is all about saying ‘no’ to people, so inherently you cannot take ‘no’ for an answer.” Someone who gets discouraged by his reply, Cameron says, does not have a dramatic need. But “if [my reply] pisses you off, and then you go out and say, ‘I’m going to show that Jim Cameron; I am going to be a director’—that gives you the kind of true grit you need to have in order to go through with it.”
You Get Your Musts
After years of trying and failing, the entrepreneur Shaan Puri finally got in better shape. He was asked how he did it. “It became a must,” he said. “We don’t get our wants. We don’t get our shoulds. We get our musts. When it becomes a must, it happens.” Whether it’s getting to Mount Doom to destroy the Ring in the fires of Mount Doom, winning NBA championships, pursuing an acting career, making it as a filmmaker, innovating a sport, or getting in shape—we get our musts, our dramatic needs.