"As an actor, I think a mistake that any storyteller can make is to play the ending"
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Playing the ending is result-oriented storytelling: letting knowledge of the final outcome leak into every choice. When an actor telegraphs where the character will land, the present moment collapses. Real people don’t know how their lives resolve; they grope, guess, deny, backtrack. Characters deserve that same ignorance. The honesty of a scene comes from a truthful pursuit of immediate objectives, not from serving the ultimate beat.
For performers, that means staying inside the character’s now. Ask: What do I want in this moment? What stands in my way? What tactics am I trying? Hindsight is the enemy of spontaneity. If a lover is destined to leave, play the effort to stay. If a villain will betray, play the need to be trusted. The arc becomes compelling because the character fights not to arrive at the ending we know.
The principle extends to all storytellers. Writers can overexplain themes, directors can pre-load tone, editors can underline twists. Foreshadowing becomes telegraphy when the story stops allowing discovery. Suspense and catharsis thrive on uncertainty, friction, and surprise; overdetermination drains them. Even when dramatic irony grants the audience extra knowledge, the characters must respond as though the future is unwritten.
The craft is to honor beats rather than destinations. Let contradictions live: love mixed with resentment, courage laced with fear. Allow scenes to turn on fresh information, not on preselected attitudes. Trust structure to deliver meaning instead of forcing meaning into every line. A performance built on live, scene-by-scene adjustments invites the audience to lean forward, to interpret, to participate.
Paradoxically, refusing to play the ending makes endings feel inevitable. When characters have fought for their wants in each moment, failures, pivots, and all, the resolution arrives with the weight of earned consequence rather than imposed design. Authenticity is not knowing where you’ll land, but committing fully to the step you’re taking now.
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