Parenting & Family Quote by David Canary

Canary’s line is a quiet defense of play in a profession that’s constantly being pressured to sound “serious.” By admitting there’s “a great deal of child left,” he rejects the adult-world demand for irony, distance, and self-protection. The subtext is almost tactical: staying childlike isn’t immaturity, it’s a tool. Curiosity, make-believe, and emotional availability are the raw materials of performance; cynicism is the dead weight.

What makes the quote work is its plainness. Actors are often expected to mythologize their craft with talk of transformation, torment, and “truth.” Canary shrugs all that off and reframes acting as “fun,” a word that can read as suspiciously lightweight in a culture that equates value with suffering. He’s also puncturing the mystique: acting isn’t magic, it’s a consensual game. The phrase “make believe thing” demotes the actor from spiritual medium to skilled participant in an elaborate social contract, where everyone agrees to pretend and then judges how honestly the pretending lands.

Context matters here. Canary was a long-running TV presence, best known for soap opera work, a genre that’s been historically dismissed as unserious despite demanding stamina, speed, and emotional precision. Calling it make-believe is both true and slightly defiant: he doesn’t need prestige language to validate the labor. His intent isn’t to cheapen acting; it’s to reclaim it from self-importance and return it to its most durable engine: play.