Character is rehearsed privately before being needed publicly.

By the time a situation demands character, there is no time to develop any. Whatever you have has already been decided by hundreds of unwatched moments where the stakes were low and the choice felt trivial. Those were the rehearsals. The public moment is just the performance.

Treat the small private choices as practice rather than as things that do not count. The one you make today when nobody would know is the one that will be available to you when it matters.