Complexity of character

If I may seem paradoxical, even a complex character must be consistently complex. And, as they are sure to stand out in a performance, the complex characters must usually be the more important ones ; as an actor would express it, there is so much " meat " in them. Many a dramatist has found a character which he considered unimportant running away with his play because the actor found it so worthy of his best efforts. Even Shakespeare had to kill Mercutio very early in Romeo and Juliet. Actors know why—especially the man playing Romeo.