Role-play in literature

[notsure]

From Stonemouth, by Iain Banks:

"I suspect we all sort of secretly think our lives are like these very long movies, with ourselves as the principal characters, obviously. Only very occasionally does it occur to any one of us that all these supporting actors, cameo turns, bit players and extras around us might actually be in some sense real, just as real as we are, and that they might think that the Big Movie is really all about THEM, not us; that each of them has their own film unreeling inside their own head and we are just part of the supporting cast in their story.

Maybe that's what we feel when we meet somebody we have to acknowledge is more famous or more charismatic or more important that we are ourselves. The trick is to know when to go with the other player's plot line, when to abandon your own script - or your thoughts for what to improvise next - and adopt that of the cast member who seems to have to ear of the pen or the keyboard of the writer/director."