request.user returns a SimpleLazyObject, how do I "wake" it?

I have the following method:

def _attempt(actor):
    if actor.__class__ != User:
        raise TypeError

Which is called from a view:

self.object.attempt(self.request.user)

As you can see, the _attempt method expects actor to be type django.contrib.auth.models.User, however the object appears to be of type django.utils.functional.SimpleLazyObject. Why is this so? And more importantly, how can I convert the LazyObject (which apparently is a kind of wrapper for a User object) into a User object?

More info on Request.user is available here: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/request-response/#django.http.HttpRequest.user This documentation seems to indicate the request.user should be a User object...

======Post-edit=====

I've got the following method now:

def _attempt(obj, action, actor, msg): 
    actor.is_authenticated() 
    if isinstance(actor, LazyObject): 
        print type(actor) 

I'm passing a user, however the if condition is still true, actor is still a LazyObject. Why is this so?