Tim Roth

British actor Tim Roth — most famous as Mr Orange in the cult hit Reservoir Dogs — plays ‘human lie detector’ Cal Lightman, an expert in reading body and facial language, in the crime series Lie To Me (Monday to Thursday at 10pm on STAR World). An e-mail chat…

What was it about Lie To Me that first attracted you?

I wasn’t sure that I was (attracted). Well, I mean, I liked the character and I liked the possibilities of the character in terms of storytelling. But initially, I passed on it because I didn’t think I was ready to do it. But when it came back again, I gave it some serious thought. It’s kind of a grand experiment, really… it’s something I have never done. Throughout 30 years of doing this, doing acting, you try to constantly find different kinds of things to do and try out new areas. This is one area that I hadn’t touched. I thought I would see if we could make this work.

What kind of research and preparation went into playing Dr Cal Lightman?

Well, the character is all mine. But the science and stuff, I worked a little bit with Paul (Ekman, an American psychologist on whom Lightman’s character is based) and Erika, who works with Paul on his team. They talked me through it, what the science is, what you are looking for, what kind of things you’re looking at… a bit of a search on that front.

Cal Lightman is synonymous with the slouch…

I did it originally to piss Sam off (Sam Baum is the writer of Lie To Me). It was just a joke really. It kind of worked. People liked it, and it’s in a way an odd homage to Peter Falk (who played Lieutenant Columbo, ‘everyone’s favourite rumpled television detective’ with a pronounced slouch in the hit TV series Columbo).

How much of Cal Lightman the character is in Tim Roth the person?

None, really.

You started off with television and today you are back to doing TV. Has life come full circle?

Made in Britain and Meantime — we never really considered them as television in the way that this is now. They were films that were broadcast and plays that were broadcast. It was a very different time. This is the first time I have really ever done network television. The idea of, on the one hand, trying to keep the network happy in what they think a show needs, and on the other, trying to play around, dance around the edges of that as well. And do something that’s a little off-kilter and a little off-the-beaten-track.

Tim Roth (right) with others in Reservoir Dogs

You went to art school and became an actor…

I had a place in art school and then I was given a part in a play, purely by accident, by a drama teacher. I never studied drama, I kind of fell in love with it. I was off to art college and in the meantime, I was doing a lot of plays and stuff in theatres around London. It pulled me in that direction.

Your filmography boasts cult films like Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Rob Roy and Planet of The Apes. Which would you pick as the turnaround film of your career?

One film I would pick out for a different reason would be Vincent & Theo, which I did with (Robert) Altman. The way that Bob worked was very collaborative with the actors, and that’s something that I appreciated. It was an interesting and new way of working, for me. That taught me a lot about how I was going — or that gave me a lot of good ideas of how to treat my actors, when I was directing. That would be a turnaround film for me. As far as career changes are concerned, I think it would be the obvious ones — Reservoir Dogs and so on, but I would go back to working with Mike Leigh (who introduced Roth in Meantime) and Stephen Frears (he directed Roth in The Hit). Those are the ones that radically changed my life. Bringing me to America (from Britain) and keeping me in America was Reservoir Dogs.

You’ve starred in three Quentin Tarantino films (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Four Rooms). What did you learn from Tarantino that helped you as an actor, and later as a director?

As a director, you learn from all the directors that you’ve worked with or I do, anyway. Most of what you learn is how not to go about things. Quentin is a born leader on set and an incredibly enthusiastic elaborator. I found, when I was working with him, that being on set was fun for everybody involved and he led that. He made sure that was part of the experience in working with him, and that’s a good lesson.

Have you been to India? Are you likely to ever take up a Bollywood offer or direct a film in India?

I haven’t been to India. I would love to go to India. I have an adaptation of King Lear that Harold Pinter wrote for me. I wanted to shoot it in India, in some very sort of remote area of India. I was trying to get it together but we never raised the money for that. That’s something I want to pursue when Lie To Me is done.

LIAR LIAR

When you scratch your chin, wring your hands, wrinkle your nose or swallow too much, Cal Lightman knows you’re lying. Here’s his step-by-step guide to busting a lie…

Putting your hand on your forehead is a sign of shame

A shrug of the shoulder sometimes means you’re lying

Rubbing of the hands when you are saying something means you’re lying — trying to reassure yourself

Lips become thinner and tighter

Saying something and pointing with the finger is a sign of lying

Hand-to-face touching increases, especially nose-rubbing and covering the mouth.

Eye contact is often broken