What is the irony beind the title "Actors" of Chapter 6 of The Cold War: A New History by John Gaddis?

Gaddis uses the term "Actors" to describe the personalities
involved in the Cold War and its inevitable end. Only personalities with the ability to dramatize
the situation would be powerful enough to end the stalemate. Gaddis
writes:

"..real power
rested, during the final decade fo the Cold War, with leaders like John Paul II, whose mastery
of...courage, eloquence, imagination, determination and faith - allowed them to expose
disparities between what people believed and the system under which the Cold War had obliged them
to live....Accomplishing this required actors. Only their dramatizations could remove the mental
blinders, ...that had led so many people to conclude that the Cold War would last
indefinitely."

Gaddis also indicates
these personalities, Reagan, Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and Gorbachev were successful due to
their "abilities to inspire audiences."

The irony is that both the
Pope and President Reagan had actually been actors. Pope John Paul II studied theater and poetry
at Jagiellonian University in 1938 until it was closed by the Nazis in 1938. Ronald Reagan had
been an actor prior to becoming governor of California, then President of the United States in
1980. Reagan made over 53 movies prior to his career in politics. Gaddis claims that it was this
dramatic ability of the personalities that helped people see the reality of the communist system
and its failings.