Pretty much the script I have for myself has a lot of annotations and various reminders on how specific moments should be performed, and what shots to use. Due to this I have created an easier to read edition that has mostly just the actors dialogue with some, very minor but also very necessary acting cues.
All in all this is a much more accessible, convenient edition of the script.
THE TRUTH ACTORS SCRIPT
Scene 1
The opening begins with 4, 2-3 second landscape shots. In the final landscape shot, at the back of the frame one man lifts a gun up and kills the other, the image cuts to black. The next shot is of blood rolling into frame, the camera follows the blood until it reaches the foot of the killer and scans up his body. I then cut to a medium shot of him walking.
Scene 2
In a clearing, in the bush, the two characters interact. Man 1 is happy, optimistic and romantic whereas Man 2 is stoic, quiet and self-assured.
Man 1: My Grandfather always told me that in this land mercy turns to dust, forgiveness leads to repentance and happiness or was it love or life? Or something like that doesn’t exist. But I don’t think that’s the truth and whether people accept it or not this this land bears fruit.
Man 2 is off doing something, however she is listening, she’s looking at him on and off whilst performing her task.
Man 1: Do you want me to finish now or can I keep going? Because I can talk the hat off a donkey. (he is happy and charming)
Man 2: How old are you? (distracted from her task)
Man 1: I’m 19. (Sarcastically, Wryly) How old are you? (as if he doesn’t want to partake in this shallow activity)
Man 2: I’m 19.
Man 1: And you have a gun. (Stating the obvious, not concerned)
Man 2: Yep.
Man 1: And, of course, you know who I am?
Man 2: Yep.
Man 1: Ok, now we’re getting somewhere (optimistically, no pause between somewhere and the next line) Would you like me to keep talking? (smiling, once again trying to charm)
Man 2: Please keep going
Man 1: Well what would you like me to talk about?
Man 2: How this land bears fruit……..What do you see in it?
Man 1: I see…..(Closes his eyes and thinks for a few seconds). This place has the potential to exist solely in an imagination; it’s as if it’s been filtered through a dream- separated from reality.) How wonderful. (Too himself, looking down)
Man 2: It’s just a whole lot of grass and trees. (almost cutting him off)
Man 1: (assertively yet optimistically and ecstatically) Its fiction. And its beautiful.
Man 2 smirks and continues on with her activity, she then looks down and continues on. She looks to the right of her. She sees Man 1 just staring at her, smiling. She then looks down and forward left. She looks at a pretty tree and then smirks to herself, as if to say ‘yeah that is beautiful’. She then continues on with her activity, she grins as if admitting man 1 is right. A lapse in the conversation occurs.
Man 1 I think I’ve said enough. I’d like to hear something from you.
Man 2: Well what would you like to hear?
Man 1: Something truthful, something honest.)
Man 2: Would you like to know why I am here?
Man 1: Not really……I just want you to tell me the truth. (He gets closer to her)
Man 2: Ok, well, I was born in Brisbane, I now live in Melbourne. My Dad Jeremy died 5 years ago and my Mum Loraine lives by herself in our old house in Queensland.
Man 1: Is that it?
Man 2: Yep. (dismissively)
Man 1: All you’ve got? (looking more surprised, he walks to her) That’s all you’ve got? You can tell me anything in the world, and that’s all you’ve got to say? (getting animated)
Man 2: Yep.
Man 1 approaches her, he goes right up to his face, he’s quite fired up now, he’s almost crying.
Man 1: I’ve asked you to give me something honest, I’ve asked for a feeling, a memory, something from your soul. I’m offering take your pain or recognise your happiness. I couldn’t care less that you moved from Brisbane to Melbourne (gesturing to no one) I want to explore your mysteries. I want to see a memory tinged in emerald. Now take a feeling, a truth, and put it on this plate. (He picks up a plate and hits it)
Man 2, walks to the other side of the abandoned camp site, she shakes her head and thinks for a moment, or at least she appears too, Man 1 watches her do this for a little bit, waiting, he walks and sits ten metres directly from the left of her. He then walks over, to the front of the shot and does something whilst sort of half looking at her, he then walks back to where he was. As he performs these basic tasks she holds a gun continually at him, watching him, every step he takes the gun is tracking him. She drops the gun and continues to look at him, she closes her eyes.
She walks over to Man 1 and gives him the gun, she says nothing and walks back and sits where she was. She walks calmly back to her spot. Man 1 looks at the gun and doesn’t pick it up.
Man 2: Well, when I wake up I feel like I’ve woken up on a boat, or in a plane but not on solid ground. I take a step out of my bed and I feel like I’m falling, that at any time, in any moment my life could just evaporate into nothingness and I could be erased and I wouldn’t have changed the world, I would just be another person that lived and faded and no one really knew them.
Man 1: That’s exactly how I feel.
Man 2: That’s not how you feel.
Man 1: How come I haven’t been given anything, I’m not virtuous, I’m not handsome……I’m not anything.
Man 2: Trapped in a frustrated mind. (to herself really, while he says her bit, she should treat her line and this line as being a part of the same ‘monologue’)
Man 1: I’m not good at football, I can’t drive a car.
Man 2: Unable to act
A moment of silence occurs.
Man 2: Why did you kill the farmer? What did he do? (she’s angry)
Silence for a significant amount of time, until the original question has been diffused.
Man 1: Please don’t hold this against me but I don’t know how to fight loneliness as well as you.
Man 2: You’re a liar.
Man 1: Thanks for telling the truth. (earnestly)
Fade to black.