Myth #1: "It's all in the eyes.": Meet Your Eyebrows...Part 2

Although we we’ll be talking about other emotional muscle groups in the face and how they communicate emotion, right now I would like to hang on the eyebrows a bit longer. Here are some more award winning actors who understand the power of the eyebrows. Not to say that they are moving them consciously, but certainly they are not preventing them from doing so.

As you look at each of these photos try to image what they would look like if only the eyes were involved. Would they be as powerful? Look at each photo, but bring focus to what the brows are doing and how it helps the viewer understand or interpret what the actor is feeling or thinking.

Look at Tom Hanks in “Castaway”, without his eyebrows positioned the way they are, would you still feel the loss and worry he was experiencing when he lost ‘Wilson’?

Looking at each of the photos, you see that the actor’s eyes are focused in on something. We, the audience are drawn to what they are focused on. But when we look closer, it’s actually what’s happening around the eyes in these photos...it’s the eyebrows and, to a certain degree even, the mouth that communicate to the audience what emotion the actor is actually experiencing.