play-act

To perform on stage; to act in a play.

To play (a scene, role etc.); to act out.

Kelly’s involvement made it a song not only about fame, but also about alleged sex across creepy power differentials. This wasn’t really even subtext: Gaga and Kelly playacted an Oval Office affair at the American Music Awards.

To engage in pretence or insincere behavior, often in order to mislead someone or gain an advantage.

The most Trump can imagine selling is himself, and what that self is is merely a hologram, a weightless shape. He play-acts at being a businessman. He play-acts at being a president. The only thing that’s authentic about him is his comic-book worldview, one divided between heroes and villains, us and them.

Abby, watching Harper give the closeted performance that she’s been giving her whole life, sees a side of her that she doesn’t like — the one who play-acts and denies herself almost too well.

To make a pretence of; to feign or simulate.

If the devil’s advocate playacts disagreement with you for the sake of strengthening your argument, the concern troll is his mirror image, a person who pretends to agree with you in order to undermine you.

Asked after the match if Djokovic had been play-acting the symptoms of cramp, Murray replied “I don't know. I would hope that that wouldn't be the case. But, yeah, if it was cramp, that's a tough thing to recover from and play as well as he did at the end.”