Acting

When an actor assumes a difficult role, I assume they do some form of self-hypnosis to, for the time necessary, really convince themselves that the things that have happened to that character have happened to them, so they really “feel” the emotions they’re trying to convey.

The best way to appear sad about your grandpa dying is to convince yourself that you really did have a grandpa and he really did just die and if you sell it well you’re going to take some emotional damage in the process because the most believable emotion is real emotion. When Leo is “sad” in a movie, he’s “sad” in real life too. 

And when you pretend to have had an imminent family emergency to get out of work and you have to face your coworkers on Zoom the following week, the emotional toll of your fake-family emergency weighs on you to the extent that you really believe it. And you can only sell it to the extent that you really believe it.