My parents had a pub and each Sunday there was an accordionist. They have told me that when I was in my cradle, I already was imitating the gestures of the musician.
If you're cast right you can actually just let yourself go because all your gestures will be right, all your intonations will be right because you just somewhere understand who this person is.
For John Wilkes Booth, sweeping, grand gestures were a way of life. It was how he navigated his way through this world. The bigger and bolder, the better.
Like, every couple of months you read, they rewrite, you come back in, they've animated more stuff - they usually videotape you while you're reading it - so they'll incorporate some gestures and some facial expressions into it.
When you are in a live-action movie, you have so many more options to express yourself. You can use your body and your gestures and facial expressions. When you are doing an animated movie, you really only have your voice.
One of the things I really like about Victorian novels is the close anatomisation of character. People's gestures and mannerisms and the quality of their thought is very closely identified and analysed.
