Several people have been asking me about Johnny Depp and if he’s lying in his trial case against Amber Herd. What’s his body language say?
Mr. Depp has sued Ms. Heard, his ex-wife, on grounds that she defamed him in an op-ed she wrote for The Washington Post. After the article Depp was released from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Both sides have accused each other of repeated domestic abuse in their tumultuous marriage. She is countersuing him for defamation as well.
The big question is if such a skilled actor can lie without showing the typical signs of a regular person. Is he in character when he’s on the stand?
Here are my thoughts. It’s really difficult to rub out the signs of deception. Just because someone is in character doesn’t mean they’re lying. Often being in character can be the most comfortable place to be for someone who’s gone thru the childhood abuse that he has.
He has great control over his face muscles. That’s why he made such a great Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. But over and over we see little smiles leak out. Usually I’d expect them during incriminating comments. But these are all over the place, sometimes during potentially incriminating comments and sometimes not. Which leads me to some suspicion that he’s having some fun with this and being deceptive in certain areas.
Small smiles like this can also be a sign that he’s feeling weak or vulnerable or emasculated
It’s a way to not let us see how much suffering he’s in. It becomes a defense mechanism that people will use throughout their life.
To his credit, he does take responsibility for many highly incriminating recorded remarks.
Check out this example and notice his 2 tiny smiles that leak out at 1:07 and 1:11:
Also, what’s interesting about him is that he accents his comments with his forehead. Most people would do this with his arms. Watch his forehead wrinkles and eyebrows. What’s most notable about his forehead is that he quite frequently shows grief. That’s the little V shape in the middle that we see. Very, very few people have control of this muscle. So it’s either real grief about the situation or a brilliant piece of acting.