I think every character should have a story goal(s). Even the delivery man, waitress, federal agent, etc. who only shows up for 10 seconds or so.
I also think every character should have a life goal(s). Giving your characters life goals will make them feel more real, and their life goals might affect how they act, react to conflict and situations, and what they use their time, money, and resources on.
Say your character is a star college quarterback who’s working hard to make it to the NFL, but he’s a hothead, so teams are really nervous about drafting him. He gets into an argument at a sports bar during a scene, and the other guy gets in his face. Your character has been in this situation before. A lot of times. And he knows if he gets into another public fight, he might not make the league. Or his draft stock might keep dropping. So, he calms down long enough to leave and beat his car in the parking lot to get the anger out.
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Excellent point, Maurice. It's an explanation of why that old actor's question is actually important -- "What's my motivation?" Having that for your secondary and tertiary characters can really make a story come alive. A good example is the first TERMINATOR film.
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Thanks, Pamela Smith. Yeah, what's my motivation? That's a great question to ask for each character in every scene. And whenever a character's motivation changes. I like to come up with a character's motivation and motivation changes in the outline. Sometimes I won't use a character's motivation, the motivation changes, etc. in the script, but I highlight them in a special color instead of getting rid of them in case I need to use them (in the script or another script).