Fiction’s Truth explores professional actors’ lived experiences of representing human suffering, distress, and violence.

The book analyses the struggles, issues, and transformations professional actors face when dealing with these portrayals of human life; the personal and interpersonal consequences – both taxing and rewarding – they experience while undertaking these representations; and the forms of attention and care they use to limit the costs and maximize the rewards of their work. The author also includes new key terminology, proposing the term dolesse to capture the experiences of representing human suffering, distress, and violence.

Written for entertainment professionals, acting students, and scholars with an interest in acting, theatre, film, and television, Fiction’s Truth addresses the challenges of representing dolesse on stage and in front of the camera, acknowledges the importance of health and wellness in the entertainment industry, and helps remove the stigma that surrounds the consequences these representations often have for actors.