Suppose Shakespeare was right when he said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages,” then who would be better to answer all the important questions of life than theater directors, writers and actors. We have all of that and more in My Dinner with Andre, which stars Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn, who play allegedly fictional characters with the same names and resumes as their real life selves, but insist that they are playing roles. They are men trying to live life fully and find the best way to do that, but are haunted by survivors’ guilt and the pain of the historical past-it is unstated, but the psychic wounds of WWII are constantly alluded to-Andre feels indicted by it, and Wallace tries to forget it. Andre lives a surreal, post-religious pagan, experimental, stripped down, constantly reflective, globetrotting life in order to feel again which is only possible because of his wealth and career success. In contrast, Wallace spends most of his adult life trying to eke out a living doing something that he loves and feels life keenly every moment of the day that isn’t filled with struggle–he is a hobbit enjoying the comfort of companionship, warmth and food. Unlike Andre, anything unfamiliar and reflective makes Wallace uncomfortable despite his attempts to respond intellectually to his friend’s existential concerns with half-hearted scientific/secular explanations. Like most conversations, there is no real resolution-both are right and wrong. If I decided to watch My Dinner with Andre again, I would hit the mute button and just watch the people who serve them. They definitely overhear them, and occasionally I caught glimpses of their incredulous responses as if they were thinking, “You guys are nuts!” My Dinner With Andre is literally all talk and seems like a naturalistic filming of a dinner between two friends, but was highly staged. My Dinner with Andre should inspire you to approach life like an actor by using the Stanislavsky approach; thus avoid becoming a zombie. Ask yourself who am I, where am I, when am I, what do I want, why do I want this, how will I achieve my goal and what must I overcome?