I’m not sure why this is, but I can’t seem to nail down a character until I get him vocally. I don’t mean I can’t complete a character without the vocal aspect. I need some vocal ideas to get jumpstarted on character development from scratch. Even if I change my mind about vocal choices later, or finally end up using my natural voice, I have a tough time getting off the starting line until I’ve done some experimenting with different voices. There’s something about hearing myself reading the lines with a different voice that makes it easier to become someone different. The first time I pick up a script I start reading my lines out loud, shifting from one vocal idea to another. I know I’ve hit the right voice when it starts to generate new ideas about other character choices. Sometimes at an early rehearsal, the director will ask me to drop my chosen voice and go with something else. But that’s okay. Unless I feel very strongly about the vocal choice, changing it is no big deal because it has already done its job by introducing me to other facets of my character I might have otherwise missed. It’s a little unconventional I know but it works for me.
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ActorPro 
There are many ways to begin to explore the voice of a character. Some of them are within the text itself. When playwrights create characters, as well as scenes and obstacles and intentions and the plot lines, they choose words that make a certain music which they hear in their heads. This is one of the important reasons that many playwrights want to hear their play read by actors any number of times before they want it in production. They want to hear what their words sound like as created by others, what their rhythms sound like, what their character differentiations sound like, how their plot line, and obstacles for the characters and the actions of the characters, etc. sound like REALLY as other people read them, see them, hear them, analyze them and have questions about them.
I have worked with several playwrights and they have been always so grateful to have actors read their scripts and then have the actors ask questions as to why the character’s language, actions and relationships are happening in the order they are and what doesn’t make sense to the actors.
Actors need to work with as many playwrights as they can and work on as many readings of new plays for playwrights and directors. And they need to ask questions and speak their minds about the language, rhythms, rhymes and sense of the character’s through line.
Everyone can learn so much… and the theatre will be so much richer for all the collaboration.
When I first get a role, I find that the character is kind of in my head as I go about my daily life. She’s just at the edge of my consciousness. Gradually, she seems to get stronger until finally, I hear her voice. Once I have her voice, I’m ready to learn my lines and the character begins to develop.