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To you, growing up might seem like a long and arduous journey, but for many people watching you, it seems like you’ve gone from an adorable child to the person you are today in the blink of an eye. Now consider what it might be like to grow up in front of the entire world, to have millions of people appear shocked at the fact that you are “suddenly” an adult. Oh, and imagine that in addition to constantly reminding them that you don’t need a babysitter, you also have to gently inform them that you are not, in fact, a wizard.

That’s pretty much the life of actor Daniel Radcliffe, better known to a generation of movie fans as Harry Potter. Stepping away from Potter proved difficult, but as the franchise came to a close, Radcliffe tried his best to seek out roles that would put some distance between himself and Harry. He sought out difficult roles on stage, taking on nude scenes as a tormented teen in the stage productions of Equus and learning to sing and dance for a Broadway revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Even Trying. He tackled characters that were nothing like Harry in a string of small, independent films: a Victorian widower in The Woman in Black and an American, openly gay, aspiring poet in Kill Your Darlings. Nonetheless, he knows that he can never truly leave Harry behind: “I have to accept the fact that my face is going to remind people of Harry because I played that character” (Dominus, 2013).

Yet as much as the specter of Harry Potter loomed over Radcliffe, so did another stereotype: that of the “Child Star.” Many young actors who captured audiences’ attention before him saw their careers fizzle once they hit puberty. Others, having gotten too rich and too famous too soon, attracted more attention for offscreen exploits and mishaps than for onscreen work. For Radcliffe, and other young actors who grew up on screen, being taken seriously may require a set of perceptive skills that they just don’t teach at Hogwarts.

The challenge of acting is to create a believable character, to make audiences think the fictional person on stage or on screen is a real person, in a real situation. Of course, an actor must also be able to shed that character—and all the associations that go with it—if he or she wants to go on to a successful career with rich and varied roles. To do that, actors must constantly alter the way that we consider, interpret, and understand who they are. In communication terms, that means changing our perceptions.

We all have unique ways of perceiving ourselves, others, and the world around us, and we communicate based on those perceptions. Perception is a cognitive process through which we interpret our experiences and form our own unique understandings. Those thoughts, or cognitions, influence how and what we communicate to others. They also affect how we interpret others’ behaviors and messages. Thus, understanding the role that perception plays in communication is crucial to our success as communicators. In this chapter, we explore how our personal perspective on the world influences our communication, how we make sense of our experiences, how culture influences our perceptions, how we think about ourselves and others, and how these factors affect our communication behavior.