just because there was the incidents throughout his childhood of people trying to break into the show and his relationship with sylvia, and even if his books/media were carefully screened to not give anything away i still think he'd be able to understand there's a level of artificiality in his world that isn't even present in their worlds. the idea that maybe he's aware he's being filmed mainly comes from that post about him digging and hiding it (1/2)
(2/2) so when the light/“star” fell at the beginning of the movie he sorta understood that it was due to the nature of his reality. it was only when meryl, marlon and his mother start acting more desperately that he realises that they’re all in on it - that’s when he decides that he needs to get out and find sylvia, because if it’s just him then he has no way to trust what is real and what is fake any more (see also, the convo with marlon where christof is feeding him lines)
post abt him digging and hiding it?
& yeah that’s a solid theory! it’s very possible he knows something is ‘off’ about Seahaven and that’s part of the reason he’s so keen to leave.
that said I think I prefer the interpretation that he genuinely had no idea prior to the events of the film. personally I always took the falling star thing as representative of what usually happens when there’s a fourth wall breech - something like that happens, Truman is puzzled, he’s presented with an explanation, accepts it & moves on with his day
also I’ve just realised, outside of the scene in the library I don’t think we see a lot of books in Seahaven? TV & magazines but not a lot of books. weird.