Acting in the Dark: Difference between revisions

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When an actor is not told something that will happen later to avoid having it possibly affect the way they play the character currently.
 
For example, an actor in a [[Spy Drama]] receives scripts only an episode ahead as shooting proceeds. They are playing as a goodie and do not know why other characters are dying. Then another script comes along -- andalong—and they discover that they were [[The Mole|evil all along]].
 
In most shows the writers have at least an outline of what's going to happen, if not a complete set of scripts. This trope is for when even that outline is not communicated to actors. It covers cases of things their character would know (see above) and cases where their character wouldn't know the later developments (such as their character getting hit by a bus.)
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* ''[[Lost]]''.
** Matthew Fox (who plays Jack Shepherd) has stated that he was the only actor on the show who knew how the series would end before the production of the final season.
** In an [http://www.avclub.com/articles/michael-emerson,27850/ interview with Michael Emerson], Emerson confirms that the cast was [[Acting in the Dark]]. One assumes that getting answers like "I can't discuss that" happened early and often on the ''Lost'' set..
** Terry O'Quinn was not informed that he was {{spoiler|no longer playing Locke}} in season 5 because he was meant to act consistently with what was known until the reveal.
* Parodied in the ''[[Hancock's Half Hour]]'' TV episode "The Bowmans", where Hancock is a radio actor and is shocked when he gets a script that kills off his character. (He gets his own back in the end.)
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