Actor AU

Tropes and genres
Related tropes/genres	Alternate Universe, Modern AU, Bakery AU, Coffee Shop AU
See also	Hollywood AU
Related articles on Fanlore.

An Actor AU is an AU that reinterprets the characters as actors in a movie or TV show. It's sometimes used synonymously with Hollywood AU or Celebrity AU. Some actor AUs may veer into RPF when applied to live action media.

History

The oldest fanfic on Archive of Our Own where the characters are set in an AU as actors is a Supernatural fic titled Star Struck, by FayJay, posted in 2009. It is tagged as "Movie AU."

Tropes

Many Actor AUs involve a romantic plot between the characters leading to romantic or sexual tension between the actors, or situations where the actors hate each other off-screen but must pretend to be friendly (or more) for publicity. The characters they play may be in a movie or show made up for the fanfic, or the AU may take a more meta approach and have them acting in the original canon itself.

Types and Subgenres

• Actor AU
• Movie AU - An actor AU focused on film, or as an AU where the characters are actors in a film even if the canon media is not a film.
• Hollywood AU - Many popular Actor AUs are set in Hollywood, but Actor AU is the more popular tag on AO3 since it doesn't limit the story's location.
• Celebrity AU - A broader category which could encompass actor AU.
• Theatre AU - A type of AU where characters are theatre actors.

Examples

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

• Performance in a Leading Role by MadLori
• Slow Show (Good Omens) by mia_ugly
• Side Dishes by Elemir (Yoonmin, 2015; takes place in Korea)
• Some of You by tangerine_char (WangXian, 2019; takes place in China)
• Send Up a Signal (that everything's fine) by coalitiongirl (Swan Queen, 2015)
• You Take Me To The Top by Asukachan07 (Westallen, 2020)
• Glamorous Stars! And Our Best Actor Goes To…？ animatic by Hamelin_哈米伦的弄笛者 (Genshin Impact, 2022)

Links

• Alternate Universe - Actors on AO3
• actors au and actor au on Tumblr