Breaking character

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In theatre (especially in the illusionistic Western tradition) and film, breaking character occurs when an actor fails 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). British English uses a slang term, corpsing, to specifically describe one of the most common ways of breaking character—when an actor loses their composure and laughs or giggles inappropriately during a scene. The British slang term is derived from an actor laughing when their character is supposed to be a corpse. From the American critical perspective, the British slang term can also carry a deeper secondary meaning: by breaking character, the actor has pulled the audience out of the dramatic work and back to reality, effectively killed the character they are attempting to portray, and figuratively turned the character into a corpse. Thus, corpsing is "the worst thing" that an actor can do on stage. An actor's breaking character often results in an abandonment of a take in recorded or filmed drama.