In my channel, we are always talking about liars,
narcissists and toxic personalities that go to great lengths to tell anything but the truth.
But what if we do something different, for a change? What if we could pinpoint what makes
an emotion real, even if we have contradicting signals? And Brendan Fraser's acceptance speech
at the Critics' Choice Awards is a great example of something that we could call a REAL emotion.
- I want you to know, that if you too can have the strength to just get to your feet,
and go to the light, good things will happen!
There are many body language clues in here, including one that is quite strange,
but there is a good reason behind it, as you're about to find out.
In this video, you're gonna learn
- What happens when the face shows TWO emotions at the same time,
- A tiny detail in people's hands that reveal their general tension, and
- When a contradiction in body language actually reinforces an emotion
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!
The reason why this award and this speech is so emotional is
because all that has happened to Brendan before this comeback to the big screen.
And he stayed off Hollywood for a number of reasons. He sustained
multiple injuries in The Mummy films, including almost being choked to death,
spine and knee surgery and vocal cord repair. He spent seven years in an out of the hospital,
which prevented him from acting in other films.
But the nail that closed off his acting career was his harassment allegations
against Philip Berk, the former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
So, after several years of hardship and suffering, he made a proper comeback with
Darren Aronofsky's psychological drama The Whale. His spectacular performance received a six-minute
standing ovation at the film's premiere in Venice, when he also broke down in tears.
Now, let's take a closer look at his reaction in the Critic's Choice Awards. And unless you
saw the event live, the following clip is gonna be really hard to find, so keep your eyes open:
- And the Critic's Choice is... Brendan Fraser!
The first thing you notice with Brendan is that he's sitting on
his chair but he's doing all he can to make himself look smaller.
He's hunching, he's got his head down with his chin stuck to his chest, and he's almost covering
his face with his left hand. We can interpret this first reaction as being a bit embarrassed.
It's like he genuinely didn't believe he had just won, and maybe he felt a
bit ashamed with his fellow nominees. And I'm gonna talk about Austin Butler in a minute.
Just a split second later, we can spot what it's called a combined microexpression,
in which the upper and lower halves of the face express different emotions. The lower half wants
to cry. The upper is surprised. These combined emotions are perhaps the most difficult to spot.
Now let's jump straight to the most emotional part of his speech, close to the end and let's see if
you can see any changes in his body language and facial expression from that very first reaction:
- If you... like a guy like Charlie, who I played in this movie in any way
struggle with obesity or you just feel like you're in a dark sea...
In terms of general body language,
his body couldn't be more tense. You see that his shoulders are high up,
really contracted and his breaking voice tone also reflects that he's having trouble breathing.
All this is conGRUent with being overly excited for what's going
on. By this point you know that his body is a fountain of adrenaline.
And one trick that you can always apply to spot someone's real tension is to take a look at their
hands. Brendan's hands have this contrast between white and pink. The immense pressure is affecting
circulation so you should always take a quick look at people's hands to gauge their tension.
Now, not all of Brendan's emotional displays are that easy to read. In fact, in the following clip,
there's a very strong contradiction on his facial expression. Let's see if you can spot it.
- I want you to know that if you too, can have the strength to just get to your feet,
go to the light, good things will happen.
Let's talk about that sudden change from wanting to cry,
to THIS display of anger. We know it's anger because he's pressing his teeth,
his lips are turned against each other and both his cheeks and his neck are tense.
Also, his previous 'sad' eyes have completely disappeared. But does it mean that he was
'angry' at that moment? well, not exactly. What happened here is that he wanted to
control himself and not completely break down and cry. So, in situations like this, we could
subconsciously inject an emotion like anger to counterbalance and control our emotional display.
So, that anger contradiction actually reinforces the intensity of his emotion.
Now, I mentioned that he could feel ashamed with his fellow nominees,
and the following clip not only shows Brendan trying to add some levity to the moment,
but the reaction of Austin Butler, who was nominated for his role in Elvis:
- Uh... where were you for "Furry vengeance"?
A couple things happen in this clip. First, he's really nervous trying to
fix the button of his jacket, although I think it's more of an excuse to keep his head down.
Then he makes a reference to Furry Vengeance,
that movie with the inverted porta-potty scene which actually made he rethink his career choices.
And we can see Austin's reaction to the joke. Our first impression is a genuine smile. But
when you watch it in slow motion, you can spot tension on his jaw and temples. Right there.
So he acknowledged that Brendan won, but body language reveals that naturally,
he was not pleased with the outcome.
But Brendan not only used self-deprecating jokes to
signal that he felt humble of receiving this award. He openly talked about his co stars,
including Hong Chau and a very special mention to Sadie Sink, as you can see in the next clip:
- And Sadie Sink, who isn't... I've been telling everybody that she's incredible. But how...
who are you? your talent precedes your years! It took me 32 years to get here.
I don't think this is the kind of words that you just write on a piece of paper
and memorize them. That's why I'm sure that he did not expect to win the award,
and he only had a general idea of what to say in case it did happen.
The way he stutters, the way his voice breaks... many times I'm told that analyzing actors gets you
nowhere because they can just fake emotions, right? isn't that what they do for a living?
But they are also human beings, and if you know where to look,
you can always spot genuine reactions.
Now, even if we are quite sure that Brendan was really close to tears,
we haven't seen the most telling facial... %$@# ...facial signal
of sadness. It's not that he was SAD at that moment, but the way our face
changes when an emotion overwhelms us and we want to cry, it's pretty much the same.
And that tiny signal appears in the following clip,
when he thanks director Darren Aronofsky for giving him a chance:
- I was in the wilderness
and... I probably should have left a trail of breadcrumbs. But you found me. And like
all the best directors, you merely just showed me where to go to get to where I needed to be.
The signal that we are talking about is raising
our inner eyebrows. That is a gesture very difficult to fake,
unless you're an actor. But how do we know that Brendan is not faking the emotion here?
Simply, because he doesn't need to. It's not hard to imagine that
he's genuinely overwhelmed by the moment. When we talk about faking
an emotion it's because you want to hide something. Why would it be the case here?
This clip is a nice reminder that when we are talking about real emotions,
they can be messy, there can be contradictions and there can be
complexity on the face and in people's body language.
But once you begin to spot the little details,
you realize that it's much easier to tell what's real... from what it's not.
My body language buddies! my name is Jesús Enrique Rosas, I'm the body language guy, and don't forget
to download my one hundred body language tips, right in the description of this video.
Much Love, and Bliss.