AI, Illusion, and the Becoming We Can’t Fake
- Jesse Jacques
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
I’ve got a major filmmaking project coming up that I'm excited about, and when the time comes, I’ll be casting actors. For now, I’ve just been watching. Observing. Quietly getting a feel for what’s out there.
And something keeps catching my eye.
It’s not just the AI headshots, though they’re everywhere. It’s what they represent. Not play, not experimentation, but people actually trying to pass them off as real.
As if looking “castable” is the same as being ready.
AI can now generate charisma, polish, and even presence. Anyone can appear brilliant online. But what used to impress now often signals something else entirely.
A quiet red flag.
Because when I see that, it doesn’t say prepared.
It says something else:
I skipped the process.
No collaboration. No direction. No light, no lens, no moment of actual presence.
Just a digital mask in place of a real attempt.
And that thread doesn’t stop at headshots.
It’s the curated feeds.
The bloated credits.
The hyper-produced projects with fifty contributors and no real center.
It’s the growing pressure to look prolific, even if what you’re building can’t hold weight in real time.
The deeper question isn’t “Did you do the work?”
It’s something more layered:
Have you actually become someone who can carry it?
Can you hold the role, communicate the pitch, command the room, navigate the creative tension, and withstand the weight of visibility?
Because if you haven’t built what lives beneath the image, the substance, the alignment, and the capacity, then it doesn’t matter how convincing the surface is.
Eventually, it breaks.
This article isn’t about AI.
It’s about the space between looking ready and being ready.
And why the ones who can hold the moment are the ones who’ve lived through the part no one sees.
Because the truth is,
You can’t skip the becoming.
The Illusion of Arrival
We’re living in a time when it’s never been easier to look like you’ve arrived.
With AI-written bios, curated branding, and generated faces and voices, it’s possible to assemble an entire persona without ever earning the frequency beneath it.
You can project polish - until you’re asked to lead a room.
You can look castable in a still - until you’re asked to hold presence in motion.
You can sound articulate online - until someone asks what you actually believe.
That’s when the mirage breaks.
Because presence, the kind that holds under pressure, can’t be generated.
It has to be built.
Earned.
Lived into over time.
Layer by layer.
What You Skip Always Shows
You can do the work on paper, build the brand, rehearse the lines, and make it all look convincing.
But if you’ve skipped the part where growth actually happens, it shows.
If you’ve never stood in front of a camera with someone guiding you, never adjusted under pressure, never taken direction, never tried again after missing the mark,
that absence doesn’t just live in your work.
It lives in your energy.
And people can feel it.
Casting directors feel it.
Creative collaborators feel it.
Audiences feel it, even if they don’t know what they’re sensing.
And this isn’t just about actors.
It applies to anyone putting themselves forward as a voice, a presence, a creative force.
Because the work always carries the imprint of how it was made.
Becoming Isn’t Glamorous, But It’s the Only Way
Most of your creative career won’t happen on million-dollar sets or inside dream collaborations.
Some of those moments will come, and when they do, they’ll probably surprise you, stretch you, maybe even affirm you.
But they’re not the rhythm.
They’re the exceptions.
The real work happens in the middle.
In the self-funded projects and the quiet rewrites.
In the gigs that go nowhere.
In the collaborators who disappear and the near-misses that almost changed everything but didn’t.
It’s in the test shoots with borrowed gear, and the independent ideas you build without permission.
It’s in the days when you feel invisible and still show up anyway.
It’s in the moments you nearly walked away, and the ones where you stayed.
That’s where the becoming happens.
Not in the applause.
Not in the booking.
But in the friction of every moment that didn’t owe you anything.
Because how you show up there is how you’ll show up when it counts.
Big moments don’t transform you.
They reveal you.
Just like in sports, the ones trusted with high-stakes plays are the ones who’ve already shown up when it didn’t count.
Coaches don’t hand the ball to whoever looks ready.
They give it to the ones who’ve earned trust by performing under pressure, day after day, when no one was watching.
It’s the same here.
If you can’t bring presence and clarity to the quiet work, don’t expect it to appear when the lights are on.
Trust isn’t a switch you flip.
It’s something you build.
The ones who rise aren’t just talented.
They’ve already become someone who can hold the moment.
That’s what gives someone gravity, that unshakable presence you can’t manufacture, only earn.
The Real Test
AI tools can help you build a surface.
They can shape a voice, mimic a look, even craft a full persona.
But the real test always comes.
It comes when the lights go up, and someone turns to you and says,
“Okay. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
And suddenly, none of the polish matters.
Not the pitch deck.
Not the generated headshot.
Not the perfectly optimized caption.
Because in that moment, it’s about your ability to respond.
To stay grounded under pressure.
To create in real time.
To lead a room.
To translate feeling into clarity, without time to rehearse.
That’s when everything you copied, rehearsed, or outsourced falls away.
And what’s left is what you’ve lived.
The instincts you’ve earned.
The presence you’ve built.
The version of you that’s been shaped by repetition, not design.
Because that’s the test.
And only what’s real survives it.
What Holds
This isn’t written from a finish line.
It comes from the same in-between space most of us live in,
where we’re shaping work we hope will last
and learning what it really means to build substance in a world obsessed with surface.
So if you’re still refining, still showing up when no one’s watching,
Still doing the kind of work that won’t go in your portfolio, you’re not behind.
You’re becoming.
And that’s what makes the difference.
Not the image. Not the pace.
Not the followers, the polish, or the performance.
What holds, what truly holds, is the energy behind it.
The presence that can’t be faked. The voice that only comes from living through it.
So keep going.
Keep building what the surface alone can’t carry.
Because even if no one sees it right away, the field always knows who’s real.
And the moment that asks for you. It’s already on its way.
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