This very question is at the centre of an essay published in Philosophy Now (Issue 170, Oct/Nov 2025, pp. 56-9) under the topic of Film, because the authors, Jason Friend and Lauren Friend, start with an analysis of a movie by Richard Linklater, Hit Man (2023), which I haven’t seen. Whether they are husband and wife, or otherwise related is not given, but according to the footnote at the end of the article, they’re both academics based in California.
Specifically, ‘Jason Friend has an MA in English from Stanford University and teaches literature and philosophy in California’ (institution not given). ‘Lauren Friend has an MA in Educational Administration from Concordia University’. And according to the footnote, ‘She is the Dean of Faculty at Pacific Collegiate School’. However, if you go to their website which lists faculty and board members, you’ll find she’s not listed. Maybe they’re using pseudonyms, I don’t know.
All that aside, from my perspective, someone’s qualifications is generally not the basis for how I judge someone’s work – how could I, when I have no qualifications of my own. And if they’re hiding their identities, I have no problem with that either.
I wrote a 'Letter to the Editor' in response, and as I pointed out, they provide a lot of food-for-thought, which meant I had to limit what I could talk about in a short missive. I had a letter published in that very same issue (on science and philosophy) and it’s rare for them to publish 2 in a row. So I won’t get ahead of myself.
In essence, the film is about a philosophy professor called Gary, who has an alter ego which is an ‘undercover agent for the New Orleans Police’. In that role he meets and falls in love with a woman, Madison, and to quote from the article: ‘he is in character playing Ron, a charismatic alpha male who happened to kill people for a living’. Its relevance to the plot is that Madison is in an abusive relationship and she toys with the idea of hiring a hit man, hence the title of the movie. I can’t tell you much more without watching the movie, but I don’t have to, to discuss the Friends’ essay.
Basically, the authors discuss the possibility of someone playing a role actually becoming the role, which they talk about in depth in the context of acting. That is specifically what my letter addresses so I won’t discuss it here. What I didn’t discuss in my letter, is the possibility of how role-playing, whether it be undercover or in a work situation can create a cognitive dissonance. If, for example, your work situation requires you to do something that is ethically dubious. I’ve been in that situation; I ended up getting sacked (fired) when I told my superior exactly what I thought. This is happening en masse under the Trump administration in various departments. I’ve explored this in my own fiction, where a woman in an undercover role ends up in a relationship with the man she was sent to spy on. It’s made more complex when he learns what she’s really doing and blackmails her.
The authors also discuss whether or not we can change our core personality traits: extroversion, openness to new ideas, neuroticism, agreeableness and conscientiousness. They cite Stephen Pinker who argues that these traits are hardwired as part of our genetics, while others argue they can be changed or modified. I’ve argued that these traits are significant in determining one’s politics, and are also evident in delineating creative types from analytic types. Based on my experience, I’d say that people in the arts are generally on the Left of politics and people in engineering are generally on the Right – I’ve had exposure to both.
Towards the end of the essay, the authors talk about existentialism, which I also touch on in my letter, but I don’t necessarily agree with their perspective, which I would suggest has a distinctive Californian slant. They compare Sartre’s existentialism with a particular brand of ‘individualism’, whereby you can become whoever you want to be, as many self-help books try to tell us. I’m not sure the authors actually agree with this, as they also point out the opposite side of the coin, where one has to ‘take responsibility for our social order’ (their words). To me, existentialism is all about authenticity, which I allude to in my letter, and which I’ve discussed on other posts. Trying to be something that you’re not or 'faking it till you make it', is the opposite of existentialism in my view. My first rule of life: Don’t try or pretend to be something that you’re not. I also like to quote Socrates, whom I argue was the first existentialist: To live with honour in this world, actually be what you try to appear to be.
So, in answer to the question heading this post: Yes, you can and do change who you are. I even wrote about this in an oblique fashion in my very first post. We don’t live in isolation, and our environment and milieu have an undeniable impact on who we become.
Here is the letter I wrote:
Jason and Lauren Friend’s essay on Richard Linklater’s film, Hit Man (which I haven’t seen) provides a lot of food-for-thought (Philosophy Now, Issue 170, Oct/Nov 2025). I know I can’t cover everything in this missive, so I’ll limit my response.
One of the things they raise, which is a core feature of the film, is the ability for an actor to ‘inhabit’ a character. I use the word ‘inhabit’ deliberately, because it’s what I do as a writer of fiction. I’ve long believed that writers and actors use the same mental process to create characters. I can’t act, I should point out, but I can create a character on the page. I’ve also had a friend (passed not-so-recently) who was both an actor and director of theatre and had won awards for both.
But here’s the thing: the key to acting and also writing, in my view, is to leave your ego in the wings or off the page. I think it paradoxically requires a degree of authenticity to take on the role of another personality. In my fiction, many of my main characters (though not all) are women, and I’ve received praise for my efforts; from women.
The key to fiction is empathy. In fact, without empathy, fiction wouldn’t work, not only for the writer, but also for the reader or audience (in the case of film or theatre). Of course, I’ve also created characters who are unpleasant to varying degrees and in different ways. Motivation is the key to a villain. It could be something petty like jealousy or more ambitious like being the leader of a cult or a world (I write sci-fi), which requires delusions of grandeur, which we’ve witnessed in real life. They all have a reality-distortion-field and are hierarchical in the extreme, where they naturally belong at the top.
Personally, I think exploring these characters, vicariously helps one to have a better understanding of oneself, including our demons.
Staying with their essay and its relevance to existentialism and whether we can change our personalities: I think it’s possible, but it depends on circumstances. Many of us have not been in a war, but my father had, including 2+ years as a POW, and I think it changed him forever. Growing up with him meant growing up with his demons, which he suppressed but couldn’t hide. This affected me negatively, but over time I found a balance. We are all a product of everything that’s happened to us, both good and bad, and only You can change that, no one else. To me, that’s what existentialism is all about.
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