Actors get paid to "lie" to us. We want them to deceive us. In fact, as Dr. Paul Ekman has pointed out, when actors perform their craft skillfully and thus suspend our disbelief - they are not in many senses of the word "lying" to us - because we want to believe them - but they are certainly not telling the truth either. It's a special kind of in between.
Yet actors are people too of course. They get paid to convince us. And it's particularly illustrative from a body language point of view to note when, especially during interviews, we catch actors red-handed. When they're not conversing with Mr. Stanislavski (or they don't get 17 re-dos), it's easy to see through the thin facade of Hollywood.
In the above interview (video has since been removed from YouTube) Will Smith and Margot Robbie are promoting their most recent film, Focus which will be released later this month. What follows is a partial nonverbal analysis.
At the 2:23 mark, Smith continues, ".... You know for me, ahhhh, finding love is the only thing that means anything in LIFE, I married Jada and my life became exponential ffffrom that choice, but, you know, there was a, I could of married Kroweshia ....you know, you know, and we would be talking about, you know, you know I just got out of jail, you know, so ....."
From 2:34 - 2:36 he reaches for and then rubs/scratches his mustache area specifically his philtrum with his right thumb. Smith is not lying when he is speaking about his belief for the priority of finding love in life. Yet he is trying to deceive when he waxes on Jada's exponential value in his life. Being a pretty good actor (and probably a yoga practitioner) Smith then becomes self-aware of his mistake (of facial touching, or in nonverbal parlance, a Manipulator, Adaptor or Pacifier aka MAP). He knows his wife will see this lie. This makes him nervous and he tries to backpedal with multiple "you knows" with an anxiety-driven joke (in poor taste). It's a cover-up, an attempt at verbal shell game. He knows Jada will catch his deception. He then verbally self-deprecates with Margot Robbie agreeing.
What other lie did Will Smith tell in this interview? What other nonverbal, present in both of these images, is also highly consistent with deception?
See also:
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Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 2844: Vladimir Tells a Lie To Obama at Normandy
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Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 2228: Jay Carney's Body Language - Contempt disguised as a Sniff .... for Republicans' Solutions to the Fiscal Cliff
Nonverbal Communication Analysis No. 2968: President Obama tells a Lie in Jest and yet ...
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