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
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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** Prowse was very upset after the premiere, and told Lucas his body language would have been completely different if he'd known the truth.
* In the film ''Smile'', none of the actresses playing the pageant contestants were told who the winner was until the scene was being shot.
* In ''[[The Shining]]'', Kubrick was able to film the whole movie without the young actor playing Danny Torrence being aware that he was in a horror film. Pretty amazing, considering ever-darkening tone of the film and some of the horror scenes he is in.
* The actresses for the main cast of ''[[The Descent (
* Legend has it that during the filming of ''[[Casablanca]]'', after each scene was filmed, Humphrey Bogart and the writers would sit down together and decide what should happen next. Ingrid Bergman had no idea until the very last scene was filmed whether her character would leave with Victor or stay with Rick.
* According to [[Kevin Spacey]], none of the actors were told of the ending of ''[[The Usual Suspects]]'' while filming.
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== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[
** Specifically, the character who turned out to be the murderer {{spoiler|(Henry, the character played by star Christopher Gorham)}} wasn't told {{spoiler|he}} was the bad guy until eight episodes into a 13-episode season.
* ''[[24]]'' thrives on this one. Notably, {{spoiler|Sarah Clarke}} was not told that {{spoiler|Nina}} would be the Season One mole until about episode 12.
* ''[[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
** 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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* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' did this with, well, everybody. Specifically to avoid the actor getting influenced by [[Character Development]], since these changes were caused by organic growth. It was supposed to be a gradual change, and it worked. Characters weren't "revealed as suddenly evil" so much as gradually became as such.
* In Season 5 of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]],'' the actor playing Ben wasn't told the exact nature of Ben's relationship to Glory until very late in the game.
* Similarly, on ''[[Dollhouse]]'', Harry Lennix wasn't told that {{spoiler|he was the Big Bad}} until the middle of the second season.
* ''[[M*A*S*H (television)]]'' did this with the departure of Henry Blake. The whole episode was filmed with the entire cast being under the impression that Blake was going home to America. After they filmed Blake's departure, [http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/mash.asp the cast was given a changed script] for the [[Downer Ending|last scene]]: Radar delivers the news that Blake's plane was shot down with no survivors.
* ''[[Justified (TV series)|Justified]]'': During most of Season 1, the audience was wondering if redneck racist Boyd Crowther had really Found the Lord and become a (fairly nutty) backwoods preacher, or was just scamming everyone. It turns out Walton Goggins, who played Boyd, didn't know either. In this case the writers/producers did this to force him to play it ambigiously.
* ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'': Alexander Siddig only found out that his character was actually a Changeling impersonator for several episodes until the episode where it was revealed.
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