When we find out that someone we know in public is very different in private, the assumption temds to be that the public person is an act, and the private person is the real one. I wonder if it sometimes isn't the other ways round - that for example, some performers only really become themeselves when on stage.

Incidentally the very word person is interesting - it comes from the Latin word "persona", meaning "mask", referring to the masks that actors in plays wore.