Why Acting Isn't Lying

There are so many people when faced with the reality of acting, are nervous that they would be lying to the audience to actually try their best and so, they make a halfhearted effort so that the audience is not fooled.

There are a few problems with this approach to acting, if you want to call it that. First of all, when you look in the dictionary, you don’t see the term: “act” say after it, “see ‘lie.’” I looked up the definition of a lie in the dictionary. I looked it up. In a real book. I suggest it, it feels more authoritative since people are more careful with what they say in real books than on the Internet. The definition of a lie is: "to speak or write knowingly and wrongly that which is not true; say or do what is false with intent to deceive another who has rights in law or morals, to know the truth."

Let's break this down. It is true that actors speak knowingly and wrongly that which is not true about them. Let's go a little further and say that actors say and do what is false, but that is where it stops. What's different about actors is that they have no intent to deceive. Which leads to my next point.

When you act with the fear that you are lying, you fail to give to the audience what they expect to receive. Actors have no intent to deceive because the actors know that the audience knows that they are actors. It's all a conspiracy. So why is there a deceitful connotation when it comes to acting? Because the unique function of acting is to take a reality, made from the imagination of the playwright, and express oneself as you would emotionally, physically and mentally if this made up reality were the true reality in the moment that it is made up, all for the purpose of telling a story in order to make a point. Therefore, you are in a sense, a part of a pretense. The difference between the pretense that you take on and the pretense that a liar takes on is the intention. A liar's intention is deceit. An actor's intention is truth.

The liar strives to cover up while the actor strives to open up. And so, when you concern yourself with the fear that you are lying, you are not paying a proper tribute to the art of acting and on the same line of thought, you’re also not giving yourself the experience that comes with the challenge of acting. In every situation, you are able to be your most real self, which can completely transform you. Acting embraces that aspect of experience. Acting takes a very personal conversation and shows it to an audience. So the actor has to act as if he is in a dark lit room with no one but his best friend, when he is actually in a large crowded room. The actor takes so many situations and, through his acting, displays to the audience how he personally would react. In that context, real acting is truth.

There's so much more that I could say about this, but for now, I believe I have made my point. If you still think acting is lying after this, let me know. We'll talk.