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Lauren

@laurengarland

HOWS IT GOING TO END?
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The reality of working on the Truman show

As I’ve seen said in Interviews with other cast members, people say it’s a luxury, a privilege, a blessed way of life. But that was not my experience working on the set of the Truman show, and I don’t think it’s like that for anyone who isn’t a leading actor.

I played the part of a side character in earlier episodes, starting from around season 8, where my child acting career took off and I was a child in school with Truman. We were told not to talk to him because we weren’t a part of the plot line, and I didn’t live on set, only came on when it was time to be apart of the scenery. Of course, that’s perfectly natural when acting, but with the knowledge that Truman didn’t know we were being paid to pretend to go to school with him felt like such a deceit, I quickly began to dread going on set.

And because of the hours I was meant to be on the show, I missed a lot of school and my own life as a child. I’m sure the other lead cast members could sympathise with this, I could barely even imagine having to be someone’s childhood friend and lie to them every single moment of their life.

The money from this acting job was good, and it made my parents happy so I continued on with it until Truman’s senior year of high school, meaning I was on the show for almost a decade. It was then that he tried talking to me, I noticed how he would smile at me and I had always felt a sort of sympathy and love towards him. We all know him, we’ve seen his every moment since birth, so I suppose we all feel close to him.

This horrible guilt was in my stomach, and he asked me if I wanted to get something to eat with him. We ran to a part of the set I knew didn’t have as many cameras in every corner and I talked to him, tried to tell him what I knew, but another cast member or maybe someone from security came and pretended to be my father, told Truman I was schizophrenic and that we were moving to Fiji.

This was of course a lie, and I was quickly apprehended and fired from the show, much to my parents disappointment. I’ve found other acting jobs in the mean time, but Truman, I watch you on television every night. I hope you’re okay.

Im sharing my experience because I believe this should end. Everyone watches him on TV night after night and day after day, and no one else sees the fact that this is a man who’s life has been fabricated, that his friends and family and wife are paid actors and that he isn’t always happy with the script they make his life. I might sound like a crazy fan or a lunatic, but I think this is inhumane. Coming up on 30 years of this, and still no one cares about Truman Burbank as a person, he is a living person with desires and dreams, and not just a person you see broadcasted every hour of the day. He isn’t a character, and that’s the problem.

Happy birthday Truman, we love you, and I miss you.

If you read this, please try to understand where I’m coming from, and don’t think I’m crazy. Stop the lies, how’s it going to end?

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thestuffedalligator

Rewatching Truman Show for the first time in a long time, and the detail that’s stuck with me this time is the set design.

The characters drive modern cars and hock modern products, but it’s all presented with a veneer of 1950s wholesome applecheeked Americana. Truman’s life is presented as an escape for the audience from the drudgery of the modern day, and the aesthetic they’ve chosen for this is the post-war economic boom. This is the simple time, the movie says. This is the good time. Doesn’t the modern day suck? Let’s go back and see our friends from the days when life was good.

And it’s a lie. Truman’s life is a lie, and the image of white picket fenced suburbia they’ve presented is a lie. It’s an elaborate construction to recreate a false memory that’s comfortable for advertisers. The movie is a satire, but it’s also a very blatant statement against the nostalgia for a golden age which never existed. It’s a lie. It doesn’t exist.

I don’t know. I’m spitballing. I’m biased because I despise mid-20th century Americana and I naturally treat it with hostility, but it’s very gratifying to see a movie kind of agree with me.