animating from the inside out

Watchin the Bobby and Aja animationmentor webinar

Someone asks about how to not be cliche and Bobby talks about "animating from the inside out" he says basically that he goes really into character. He knows who the character is, what their backstory is, basically knows everything about who the character is and how they respond to the world. Then he just goes into his mind and becomes the character and allows their personality to emerge and dictate the performance. So not thinking "what would it be cool for my character to do", but "what would I do if I had this background in this situation."