Lie To Me A quick chat with Lie to Me’s Tim Roth

Tim Roth is back to separate more fact from fiction as Lie to Me’s troublemaking ‘human lie detector’ Cal Lightman...

Following a painfully long break, The Lightman Group is back in business this week when Tim Roth returns to our screens as cocky Cockney body language expert Cal Lightman, the so-called ‘human lie detector’, who uses his ability to read clues embedded in the human face, body and voice to solve a wide range of crimes.

As the third and, we are sad to report, final series of Lie to Me resumes (Sky1, Thursday, June 2, 10pm), Lightman is still enjoying his new-found freedom after cutting his ties with the FBI. This week’s opening episode sees him take a trip down a mine to discover who caused a fatal explosion, while later episodes find him investigating a mental hospital that might be holding a patient against his will, and probing the death of a social network entrepreneur.

Meanwhile, the romantic tension between Lightman and his business partner Dr Gillian Foster (Kelli Williams) continues to sizzle, with the pair sharing their most intimate moment yet in this week’s episode.

TV&Satellite Week magazine quizzed Roth – and analysed his body language – to find out more about what’s coming up...

Lightman and Foster share a tender moment in this week’s episode. Are they ever going to get together?
“You’re going to see a lot more of their relationship over the coming weeks. It’s going to be a very interesting time and they are going to get tested in a good way. They get themselves into all kinds of trouble. I can’t give the game away, but we’re hoping to do a lot more character stuff between me and Kelli as the season progresses. It should be fun for the audience.”

What do you like most about Lightman? I like that he's an absolute troublemaker.
“I like that’s he’s the guy that was in school at the back of the classroom causing trouble. He has a really, really difficult time dealing with authority, but at heart he’s a softie. He operates in the grey area of what’s possibly legal and possibly illegal and we develop that rogue element even more in the new episodes.”

It seems that Lightman’s Cockney accent has got stronger since the series began...
“I originally fought against him speaking too much slang in the first series, because I didn’t want to shine a light on the English aspect of it. But I started bringing it in myself in the second series and the network was terrific about it. They just embraced it.”

What have you learned about reading people’s facial expressions?
“I’ve tried not to, but it does bleed in. You can’t avoid it. But I am very bad at it. I’m usually completely off.”

Do you have any regrets about signing up to a TV series?
“When they came to me with Lie to Me, I said no a couple of times. Then I started taking it seriously and I’m really glad I did, though I found it very hard to adjust to the formula at first.”

What’s been the most challenging role of your career?
“The most challenging roles are the worst ones, because you’ve got to make it through the day when you don’t want to be there because of the project you are working on. I’ve done some crap films in the past, which is fair enough because everybody does if they are around for long enough.”

Why do American dramas cast so many British actors?
“They bring a certain class, I suppose. When I came over here to the States, there was me and Gary Oldman and not many others. But now you can spit and hit one.”

Who has been your favourite guest star on the show?
“Lennie James did an episode in the last series, and he was wonderful. We wrote an episode for Ray Winstone, but unfortunately he couldn’t do it. He’s the reason I became an actor. I saw him in Scum years and years ago and it changed my life.”

Now that Lie to Me has been cancelled, would you ever come back to the UK?
“I’d go back to direct. I’d go back to act. I couldn’t live there.”