History Main / BadActorGoodLiar

* ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franka Franka]]'': Issue #5 introduces John Something Smith, a 1930s con man who is very good at impersonating people but suffers from crippling stage fright as an actor. Smith and the titular hero team up to keep a pupil of his from using the skills in impersonation taught to him by Smith to commit a bank robbery.

* ''Anime/LupinIII'': Lupin posits this at the end of an episode where Fujiko tries to trick him into helping her and a friend steal some valuable Japanese portraits and replace them with forged copies. The "friend" is actually an actor playing a descendent of the man who painted the pictures, but Lupin picks up on it fairly quickly and turns the tables on them both.

* ''Series/{{Leverage}}'': Sophie Devereaux is the team's grifter and is able to assume fake identities as easy as a chameleon changes color. Despite this, her theatrical acting is so atrocious that Eliot finds it worse than the time he was forced to play RussianRoulette. In one episode, a critic says her production of ''Theatre/TheSoundOfMusic'' was so terrible it made them root for the Nazis. However, Sophie can act well when a con requires her to play the role of a talented actress.
--> '''Nate''': She can act. When it's an act.

-->-- '''Nathan Ford''', "The Nigerian Job", ''Series/{{Leverage}}''

* ''VideoGame/Persona5'': Inverted. Akechi is skilled at acting, appearing kind and charming as the Detective Prince on TV, earning him a devoted fan base. However, he speaks awkwardly when he directly lies about being surprised at Morgana talking while pretending to have only newly acquired a Persona. Unsurprisingly, the Phantom Thieves do not believe him, though partly because Akechi accidentally acknowledged Morgana's voice several months before.

* ''[[Creator/KJParker How To Rule An Empire And Get Away With It]]'': Notker is a mediocre actor and playwright who is fairly good at doing impressions, but ends up doing a very effective ([[BecomingTheMask too effective]]) job when he's commandeered into doing an EmergencyImpersonation of slain war hero Lysimachus. Essentially, Notker is kind of a non-entity as a person, and thus a less than great actor, because he put a lot of effort into escaping his past as the son of a gangster. However, since Lysimachus is what Notker's father (or himself) would be like if he found a cause he believed in, while still being [[SociopathicHero a cheerful murderer]], Notker can effectively "become" Lysimachus, since he knows exactly how he thinks (thought).

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'': "[[Recap/AngelS01E17Eternity Eternity]]" opens with Angel and Wesley being forced to sit through Cordelia's horrible performance in a play. In the episode's climax, she is able to distract [[SplitPersonality Angelus]] by tricking him into thinking she has a bottle of holy water. In a later episode, she successfully impersonates a cop.

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'': "[[Recap/AngelS01E19Eternity Eternity]]" opens with Angel and Wesley being forced to sit through Cordelia's horrible performance in a play. In the episode's climax, she is able to distract [[SplitPersonality Angelus]] by tricking him into thinking she has a bottle of holy water. In a later episode, she successfully impersonates a cop.

* ''Series/{{Angel}}'': "Eternity" opens with Angel and Wesley being forced to sit through Cordelia's horrible performance in a play. In the episode's climax, she is able to distract [[SplitPersonality Angelus]] by tricking him into thinking she has a bottle of holy water. In a later episode, she successfully impersonates a cop.

* ''Series/{{Leverage}}'': Sophie Devereaux is the team's grifter and is able to assume fake identities as easy as a chameleon changes color. Despite this, her theatrical acting is so atrocious that Eliot finds it worse than the time he was forced to play RussianRoulette. In one episode, a critic says her production of ''Theatre/TheSoundOfMusic'' was so terrible it made them root for the Nazis.