役者
やくしゃ · yakusha · JLPT N2 · noun
actor
🎭 役 = role/part + 者 = person: a person who takes on a role
役 means role or part, and 者 means person. Together, 役者 is a person who plays a part on stage or screen, which is an actor.
者 — old/elder 耂 + say 曰
Originally depicted sugarcane or a similar plant, but the form was reanalyzed as 耂 (old) over 曰 (say). It became a grammatical suffix meaning 'one who…' or 'the…thing,' nominalizing verbs and adjectives. Today 者 mainly marks agents or categories, as in 学者 'scholar' or 记者 'reporter.'