I have to say that I've got the best followers on Twitter and Instagram, because that's why
I get suggestions of analysis such as this Meghan Markle interview.
And it took me some time, but I finally figured out why she shows so many different face expressions
in such a short period of time.
And you're about to know why.
Welcome back, my body language buddies! my name is Jesús Enrique Rosas, I'm the Body
Language Guy, and it would be great if you join us by just liking this video, subscribing
and hitting that bell! let's get down to it!
Now, you're gonna watch ten seconds.
The first ten seconds of this video.
Just try to relax, take a deep breath and keep focused for just ten seconds because
you won't believe all the facial clues you're going to spot:
- Hey it's Ruben Jay here at the USA network premiere for the season, the new season premiere
of Suit - That's right
- Uhm, with...
Meghan Markle
Those were ten seconds, and ten different facial states.
This is not common at all, and something that we no longer see in Meghan's videos.
I mean, the last time we saw her doing this kind of rapid muscle movements, facial emotions
and changes in expressions was in her engagement interview with Harry.
But the first expression that we can observe is this smile.
Not a real smile, but it doesn't matter much, because in most of these situations, the person
can be showing a diplomatic smile, or a transitional facial expression.
What this tells you is that she's not comfortable and looks really, really tense at that moment.
By the way, I usually represent slow motion in my videos in Black and White, but in this
case, since the footage is not top quality, I left the color shades because it helps spot
the facial details.
Just for the record, You're gonna see a 'slowed down' text on the corner.
But right after that forced smile, comes the first extreme change.
From a smile she changes all the way to seriousness, and maybe it's a bit hard to spot, but she
clenches her jaw muscles.
So, this is much better to spot if we put these two first facial expressions side by
side so you can compare them.
And this switch happens in a couple seconds.
Now, many months ago, when I began digging deep into Meghan's videos, at first I thought
that these were facial tics.
Facial spasms that cannot be controlled.
But tics usually happen with certain muscles of the face, are really localized.
In Meghan's case her whole face changes.
It's a complete different expression.
And the next step is when she turns to see the camera.
This could be described as a resting expression.
A rather neutral face.
But even so, it's not hard to spot that meghan has a very intense gaze.
A very intense look.
Or at least that's the look that she wants to give the camera.
I must say that she looked really good at that moment.
And I'm telling you that she's got a very intense stare at this point, and to prove
it, I'm going to show you what happens just one second later.
On the left, you see the intense look, on the right, one second later, a more relaxed
expression.
This is high level face reading.
This is something that your brain is designed to do on its own, automatically.
What we are doing here is that I'm showing you two versions of the same expression so
your rational mind can absorb the subtle differences.
What I think happened here is that Meghan turned to the camera, tried to relax her face
but needed a couple seconds to really settle her feelings.
Remember that any clenching of the jaw has to do with emotions.
It could be nervousness, or frustration, or anger, but if you want to relax your face
after that, it has to be consciously.
She then turns to Ruben again, and tries to display a smile.
But the smile that she displays in this case is not genuine, because her lip corners are
not pulling really upward, but to the sides.
And there's not enough pressing of the cheeks on her eyes, so... nice try, but no, it doesn't
cut it.
She tries to play friendly, with a gesture that you might already know its meaning, that
is rising the eyebrows.
We raise our eyebrows for many reasons, but the most relevant here is trying to show goodwill
to the interviewer.
Now, by this point you might be a little confused.
As in, what is going on with Meghan's face?
And that's the most important part of body language.
It's not just about spotting the facial expressions, but trying to make sense of why do they happen,
and in this case, why do they change so fast.
And there's an explanation, but first let's review all the rest of her facial expressions.
The next one is a compound facial expression.
She turns away, relaxes her mouth, she's no longer trying to smile so she almost drops
it completely, and does a long blink.
A long blink is people trying to evade themselves from the moment, or being bored, or wishing
that they were somewhere else.
Now, Ruben is talking to her, so it's natural that she is going to be turning to face him
again.
But when she does that, two things happen.
She swallows really hard, she tenses her neck muscles and makes a subtle chin jut.
This is another compound facial expression because it's a mix of various signals that
commonly happen individually.
When an analyst spots a compound expression, you have to judge what is the correct word
to define what you are seeing.
And this is because compound expressions can have any kind of facial combinations.
In this case, my personal take on it is that I see hostility.
If you see any other emotion, or you want to define it with another word, I'd be glad
to read it in the comments.
The final expression could be easily ranked as the most intese of all that we've seen
so far.
She faces Ruben directly, really clenches her jaw, and tilts her head down.
Now, for one moment let's discard the head movements and focus on that jaw clenching.
You know that her jaw is really tense because the muscles form a diagonal line that start
at the back of her jaw and point to the eyes.
That's something that we've seen in other videos of Meghan so it's a recurring signal
that she does it most of the time.
And this is a clue about her personality.
Clenching the jaw, most of the time, is trying to release stress.
Is blowing off steam.
Does it mean that Meghan is angry all the time?
maybe not, but it seems that she's adopted that jaw clenching as a bad habit.
That must be the reason why she's got such a strong jawline and how it has evolved through
the years.
By sheer contraction, over and over again.
But if she adopted this as a bad habit is because at some point she had this intense
bouts of emotions that required that facial escape.
And that has to do with the explanation of why does she have so many facial expressions
in so little time.
Because you have to look at all of them like a system.
And it's much easier if you reduce the expressions to their easiest meanings:
One, she has a hard time showing genuine smiles Two, She has a hard time hiding her tension,
that might as well be anger or frustration, and
Three, she looks like she wants to have the control of the narrative because she seems
so affected by the man talking.
You see that it's not easy, but it's not impossible either to make sense of ten different facial
expressions if you group them in their simmilarities.
Despite how distracting or confusing this might be, the easiest answer is the correct
one.
Meghan was upset, and she was doing a very bad job at hiding it.
And she must have really wanted to control the narrative, because later in this interview,
she grabs the man's cards, and she even gets upset when he looks at another person over
her shoulder.
But that's material for a second video.
If you want a second part, just show me some love with the LIKE button.
If you want to refine your observation skills, all you have to do is download my 100+ body
language tips, right in the description of this video.
My name is Jesús Enrique Rosas and it will always be a pleasure, my body language buddies!
Much Love, and Bliss.