Examples from RL Becoming the Mask that belong on Lost in Character or Method Acting — check to make sure they're not duplicates before adding.
- C. S. Lewis said in the preface to "Screwtape Proposes a Toast" that while lots of people requested a sequel to The Screwtape Letters, for the longest time he refused to write one because even though the original book was the easiest thing to write that he had ever produced in his life, it was a horrific and stifling experience to have to make himself think like Screwtape and basically become a demon.
- Method Acting is all about Becoming The Mask (or the character) for a role.
- Peter Sellers had said on numerous occasions "There is no 'Me'; I do not exist." As an actor, he became his role and often had a hard time shaking it off afterward.
- Robert De Niro is said to do this, "disappearing" into his roles.
- Robin Williams stayed in character off set until whatever film he was working on had wrapped. When he performed the chilling lead role in One Hour Photo, his wife was so upset she told him she would divorce him if he took another role like that.
- Hugh Laurie really did develop soreness in his back and leg from constantly limping in his role as Dr. Greg House... though this is slightly different, since it actually does stress the body to force it to move unnaturally, and especially so because House uses the cane on the wrong side. He also kept the accent even when flubbing lines.
- Christian Bale did interviews for the Batman movies in the same accent that he uses in the movies to avoid those who don't know his other works. Pretty jarring during the MTV Movie Awards when he spoke to Brandon Routh using his natural accent.
- Similarly, Bale spoke with an American accent during his infamous rant on the set of Terminator Salvation.
- Andy Kaufman was a vegan in real life but ate meat when portraying the Jerkass lounge singer Tony Clifton because Clifton ate meat.
- Daniel Whitney, aka Larry the Cable Guy has started falling into this according to his friends. Larry was initially just one personality in Whitney's stand-up routine, but quickly became the entire show, and according to said friends, Whitney has been gradually taking in more and more of Larry's mannerisms over the years. Even when playing characters other than Larry (such as Mater) he asks to be credited as "Larry the Cable Guy" as opposed to Daniel Whitney.
- Heath Ledger may have done this before his death, production staff mention that the long hours tapped into the mind of one of the most chaotically insane people in media made him a different person, and it's believed drove him to madness and suicide. However, this is deemed unlikely based on testimony from other production staff and associates, and it was far more likely that it was an accident due to job stress.
- Amusingly, a number of fans joke that Ryan Reynolds no longer exists, and he should now be regarded as Deadpool.
- Similarly, Robert Downey Jr. quipped that his wife was now somewhat disgruntled to find herself married to Tony Stark, though after he left the role he made it quite clear that while he enjoyed the role, he is not Tony Stark.
- Daniel Day-Lewis got extremely committed to the roles he played prior to his retirement, particularly villainous roles, that some actors or directors got alienated and were unwilling to work with him in the future. After a particularly intense day on the set of Gangs of New York, fellow actor Liam Neeson told Lewis "My god, man! Why don't you try acting?!"
- Austin Butler basically became the reincarnated Elvis Presley after portraying him in Elvis (2022) to the point that, even long after making the movie, he admitted to having trouble shaking off Elvis's distinctive Southern twang
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- David Bowie apparently became very engrossed in some of his stage personas, to the point where they affected his offstage personality. He became so immersed in the character of Ziggy Stardust that, according to people around him, he started to think he was the character. This also applied to when he performed as the Thin White Duke — which was even more troubling, since the Thin White Duke was a Nazi Nobleman and Bowie ended up supporting fascism for a time. Bowie's period of Putting on the Reich is generally considered the lowest point of his drug-induced Creator Breakdown — as Rick James once said, "Cocaine is a hell of a drug."
- Playing Richard Nixon for Frost/Nixon, Frank Langella stayed in character all the time. When he wasn't in a scene he would just go stand quietly offstage and think. When it was his cue the stage manager would say "Mr. President, you are needed onstage."
Examples from Becoming the Mask RL that belong on Friendship on the Set or Romance on the Set — check to make sure they're not duplicates before adding.
- Lalla Ward once said in a Doctor Who Magazine interview that the reason she and Tom Baker got married was because they played the Doctor and Romana Like an Old Married Couple, and then mistook that for actually being in love.
- It is quite common that actors portraying characters who are close friends will also become friends in Real Life.
- William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were almost as close as Captain Kirk and Commander Spock are. They were also both very close with DeForest Kelley, who played Dr McCoy.
- Cirroc Lofton and Avery Brooks of Deep Space Nine developed a real son-father type relationship away from the set.
- The actors who play Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson always seem to end up being extremely close friends in real life. Casting for modern adaptations mainly focused on the chemistry of the two leads so they would invoke this trope.
- Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke are prime examples: Hardwicke, who played Watson from "The Empty House" onward, would try to help Brett while he was battling bipolar disorder.
- Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch (Watson and Sherlock in Sherlock) are either really good friends and very close to each other or extremely good at faking it.
- Frasier actors Kelsey Grammer and John Mahoney. After Mahoney passed away in 2018, Grammer honored him by saying "He was my father, and I loved him.", adding that Mahoney played his father longer than he knew his own father and that he never had a brother either, meaning that the relationship with both men was very much like family.
- The core cast of Boy Meets World (Ben Savage, Danielle Fishel, Rider Strong, and Will Friedle) have all become True Companions in Real Life, much as their characters (Cory, Topanga, Shawn, and Eric, respectively) did on the show. Three of the four (all but Savage) launched the podcast Pod Meets World in 2022, in which they rewatch and comment on BMW episodes.
- Jack Klugman and Tony Randall when they played Oscar and Felix, respectively on The Odd Couple (1970). Initially, both of them would have preferred to work with an actor that they'd co-starred with in their earlier performances of the original play. However, they very quickly bonded in the pursuit of an ever-funnier show-they'd argue all the time at work, sure, but it was always about the script and perfecting the scenes, never about them personally. Years later Klugman actually wrote a book in tribute to his and Randall's friendship, titled Tony and Me: A Story of Friendship.
- The converse of this is sadly also possible. Warren Mitchell and Anthony Booth, who played a feuding father- and son-in-law duo in Till Death Us Do Part came to loathe each other in real life. Mitchell still cannot bring himself to refer to Booth by his first name.
- The late Russi Taylor and the also late Wayne Allwine, the previous voices of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, developed a romance after meeting each other for the first time while on the job, and were married till Allwine's passing.
- Gates McFadden and Wil Wheaton played mother and son Dr. Beverly and Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and maintained that bond beyond TNG, with Wil frequently referring to Gates as "Space Mom".
- The original core cast of the Avengers apparently still maintain a WhatsApp group, years after half of them have left the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Possible TRS Queue due to things coming up on the RL cleanup thread:
- Operator Incompatibility wick check and proposed replacement description for when I TLP it: Operator Incompatibility Wick Check
- TRS / Trope Talk It Amused Me, since nobody, including the description, seems to be sure if it's about somebody's overall motivation or for individual acts, and "people do things they enjoy" is chairs. Likewise, it doesn't seem sure if it's supposed to be about amoral characters or not beyond its first paragraph.
