Tulsa: Actor Tim Roth detects promise in new TV role ... really

Tell a little white lie, a fib, a whopper, or act surprised for more than a second and human lie detector Dr. Cal Lightman knows you’re not telling the truth in the Fox drama "Lie to Me.”

"This character has legs,” said Oscar winner Tim Roth, who plays Lightman in this series based on the real-life science of Paul Ekman, an expert-for-hire in emotions research and nonverbal communication. "He can be in all sorts of different situations, and I thought that might be kind of a fun experiment.”

The London-born Roth, known for his brilliant portrayals of bad guys in films such as "Pulp Fiction,” "Reservoir Dogs” and "Murder in the Heartland,” is the good doctor who heads The Lightman Group, a team of experts hired by federal law enforcement, government agencies and local police to break their toughest cases.

While Lightman knows when someone is lying, it’s his team of behavioral psychologists — his professional partner Dr. Gillian Foster (Kelli Williams in her return to series television), lead researcher Eli Loker (Brendan Hines) with "a moral imperative to tell the truth” and Ria Torres (Monica Raymund), a natural at reading people — who find out the "why.”

For Roth, last seen in "The Incredible Hulk,” the show’s premise "is an interesting concept.” And deciding to take on the lead in an American television series?

It was an opportunity to stay close to home and family in Los Angeles.

"I quite liked the idea of playing the character or, possibly, a character in a long form, like a play, really,” the 47-year-old actor said in a recent teleconference. "Like a long run in the West End.”

The show is based on real science, he said, something that should intrigue viewers.

But don’t look for Roth to try out his new detecting skills on unsuspecting family members.

"I try to take absolutely none of it home with me but the phone keeps ringing,” Roth said. "I make a very strong attempt not to get to know too much of the science and not to practice it at home or any of that stuff.

"The real guy, Paul, can’t switch it off. He can’t unlearn it. He knows so much about this stuff that he can see, in everybody, what they’re maybe thinking. He watches their bodies betray them. I really don’t want to do that.”

Neither, he said is he an actor who does a lot of research.

"All of acting is lying,” Roth said. "It’s all deception. And, for me, for my character, thankfully he is one of the few ones who doesn’t have to be on stage … I’m always lying. That’s what actors do. You never stop. It’s just how good you are at it, I suppose.”