This Is How We Fake Reality
From movie sets to everyday life
Everyone thinks movie sets are about creating something real.
They’re not.
Everyone thinks movie sets are about creating something real.
They’re not.
They’re about creating something believable enough that your brain stops asking questions.
And once you learn how that works, you can’t unsee it—in movies or in life.
One thing I wish I had started when I became a scenic artist for theater many years ago—
I wish I had measured every piece of wood with a tape measure, just to know the cumulative length of wood I’ve painted to look like something else.
Wood painted to look like marble.
Wood painted to look like brick.
Wood painted to look like… other, more expensive wood.
Honestly, I’ve probably painted thousands of feet of faux finishes like this. And when you see them on set, they look real—because they’re supposed to.
If you look at the picture below, on the left side is a real house. We were asked to build a fake façade on the right side because, in the script, the actors needed to be able to run down the hallway. So we faked it on the outside so that when you watch the movie, you believe it on the inside.
Because I’ve done this for a living, it’s not uncommon for me to be somewhere with friends and feel the need to touch everything to see if it’s real.
For example, I was at a restaurant the other night with two friends. Behind one of them was this huge column. I kept staring at it, thinking—there’s no way that’s real. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for two hours.
Finally, I got up and said, I have to satisfy my curiosity.
So I touched it.
Fake.
I knew it.
It’s not uncommon for me to do this everywhere I go. I’ve even gotten in trouble in museums for touching things I thought weren’t real.
But when you learn how to fake anything, it’s kind of hard to believe anything.
And maybe that’s the real plot twist.
Not that movies are fake—but that we’re doing the same thing every day.
We’re building sets in our homes and at work. Painting over things that no longer fit. Choosing what to focus on so we can grow. Deciding what feels real enough to believe so we can feel at home in ourselves.
So the question isn’t, is this real?
The question is—
What am I creating… and do I believe it?
This is part of a larger story. If you want to follow it—start here:
🎬 🧭 I Didn’t Plan This Life—It Just Happened
→ (How I accidentally built a 25-year career in movies)
🌍 ✈️ We Built a Life Without a Plan
→(How we lived around the world and made it work)
💔 ⚡ The Moment Everything Fell Apart
→ (What happened when life stopped following the script)
→ 🔥 🧭 I Had to Start Over From Nothing
→ (What came after—and how I found my way back)