History Main / ActingInTheDark

* ''Film/MaryPoppins'': The child actors who played the Banks children were not told in advance about the tricks that ''Creator/JulieAndrews'' would pull off. Their surprise was real when she pulled a hat stand out of her bag, sending the kids under the table it sat on to see where it came from.

* In a sense with ''Film/MadameWeb2024''. Star Creator/DakotaJohnson mentioned that acting against a blue screen and fake explosions that weren't really there meant that she really doesn't know how she did relative to what the filmmakers will do. It was her first movie with extensive blue screen usage.

* When [[Webcomic/GirlGenius Agatha Heterodyne]] is posing as an actress in a traveling show, a local governor requests a command performance of "The Socket Wench of Prague" -- implied to be a ''filthy'' bawdy play. Agatha's more worldly castmates have her learn the dialogue without any context, which leads to a hilariously realistic performance since she has no idea what's coming.

** Creator/GenUrobuchi and Creator/AkiyukiShinbo, respectively the writer and director of the show, did not inform [[spoiler:Creator/EmiriKatou, voice actress of Kyubey, the show's MentorMascot,]] of her character's [[spoiler:[[BlueAndOrangeMorality true]] [[EldritchAbomination nature]]]] and kept character designer Creator/UmeAoki in the dark about the show's dark storyline. Either they wanted to make sure the viewer was fooled, in which case it was this trope, or they really wanted to see [[HeroicBSOD the others' faces]] once they found out, in which case it was just {{trolling|Creator}}.

In films, this may have a bit more time to plan out a specific TwistEnding and are able to schedule the big scene at the end of a shoot with a minimal crew to help preserve the secret. In tv shows the weekly grind and sheer content being made means actors can only think a week or two at a time, while writers and producers may have an outline the ability to give the actor a heads up is the exception rather than the rule. This trope is intended for when the lack of information serves (or diffuses) a narrative purpose in the creative process. It covers cases of things their character would know (see above) and cases where their character wouldn't know the later developments (such as their character getting hit by a bus). An extreme version is actors not even realizing the context of their role in the story, believing [[HeroOfAnotherStory they are a minor part of the narrative]] only [[YouAllShareMyStory to be revealed as the main character]].