Acting Face to Face 2: Emotional Alignment by Sudol John

Author:Sudol, John
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-12-15T16:00:00+00:00

The Genuine Smile

Look at photo #20 and #21. Although both are smiling, only one is a genuinely Happy smile. Can you tell which one?

As I said earlier, we smile for many reasons, mostly social. Both of the smiles involve the smiling muscle (zygomatic major), which raises the corners of the lips. But the genuine smile on the right also involves the muscle surrounding the eye (orbicularis oculi). This smile is known as the Duchenne Smile, named after the French neurologist Guillaume Duchenne.

When we experience a genuinely Happy feeling, the orbicularis oculi contracts. This muscle has two parts. The inner part of the muscle tightens the eyelids and the skin directly below the eyes. The contracting of this inner part of the muscle makes the squinting look you see in the picture on the right.

The outer part of the muscle, which runs all the way around the eye socket, pulls down the eyebrows and the skin below the eyebrows. At the same time, the outer part of the muscle pulls up the skin below the eyes and raises the cheeks (See photo #20).

Working on the inner part of the muscle (the eyelid tightener) is easy to do. The outer part, which contracts the muscle around the eye socket, is a different story.

Only a small percentage of the population can activate this muscle without a genuinely Happy feeling, and so it’s difficult to fake a genuinely Happy smile. Take a look at Hilary Clinton’s “fake smile.” She looks attractive and pleasant, but also stiff and posing. Does your smiling headshot look like hers? If so, I strongly suggest taking a new one.

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