You can be the funny one and the one who cries at movies. Roles aren’t contracts.

Groups hand out roles because they make people easier to predict, and then everybody including you starts treating the role as the whole description. The funny one is not allowed to be serious, the sensible one is not allowed to be reckless, the tough one is not allowed to be moved by a film. People hold the contradiction easily; it is only the label that cannot.

Break your own role once this week in front of the people who assigned it. Be serious if you are the joker, or silly if you are the serious one. The surprise lasts about a minute, and then they adjust.