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Getting to the Truth with 'Lie to Me' Creator Samuel Baum
by Troy Rogers
Show me a person who says they've never told a lie in their life and I'd most likely be looking at a liar. For good or evil, unintentional or not, white or black, who hasn't told a lie? What if there was a team of experts who worked with the law that could tell if you were lying just by looking at your facial expressions and involuntary body language? On Wednesday, January 21, that's exactly what Fox has in store when the new series Lie to Me makes its debut, starring Tim Roth in the role of Dr. Cal Lightman, the world’s leading deception expert, based on the real-life scientific discoveries of Dr. Paul Ekman. Lie to Me will see Roth as Dr. Lightman and his character's team of deception experts as they work with both law enforcement and government agencies to get to the truth buried underneath a variety of criminal lies.
Not too long ago we had the chance to put Lie To Me creator and executive producer Samuel Baum under the conference call polygraph to get to the truth behind what the show has to offer, the research process, and why his agent now only talks to him over the phone since he created the project.
THE DEADBOLT: You were saying that you hung around with Paul [Ekman] for a while and that you researched this a lot. Do you find that you can spot people doing it all of the time?
 SAMUEL BAUM: Yes, it’s an incredibly profound skill and it comes quite quickly, actually. One of the programs that Paul started is the SPOT Program, which is the screening by observational techniques program that the TSA uses in major airports now. What the SPOT program does is it has people who are scanning for micro expressions, looking for a micro expression of fear and anxiety of someone who’s planning to do something criminal at the airport or on one of the planes. And in as little as two hours of training, you can train these behavioral detection officers to spot micro expressions. So, yes, there are a lot of things that I see now that I was blind to before, and basically my agents will only deal with me on the phone now because they can’t lie anymore.
THE DEADBOLT: I was going to say that must be a handicap for you once they find out that you can do this.
BAUM: [laugh] Exactly. They’ll never go to lunch with you. It’s awkward.
THE DEADBOLT: Well, on the other end, do you try to curtail your lying now?
 BAUM: I think I’m much more aware. I’m much more aware if I am lying or not revealing the full truth. And that’s another important piece of the show, which is - the stories we’re going to tell are going to frequently create situations where there’s a big cost not only to lying, but where there’s a real cost to telling the truth. We don’t live in a world where honesty is always the best policy. As grown-ups, we’ve all come to realize that there are times when lying is the right thing to do when there isn’t another option. That’s the territory that the show is going to explore, is really asking the question "When is lying the right thing to do?"
THE DEADBOLT: Since this is fairly new and a lot of people haven't heard of it, in your research, how well does their expertise hold up in court?
BAUM: It’s similar to the issues that the polygraph faces in that the polygraph is not admissible in court unless the defendant agrees to take the polygraph and agrees that it will be introduced as evidence in court. And so there’s been a pretty limited number of times when someone like Paul is actually testifying in a court case because there’s such deep skepticism about it being 100% certain. However, Paul and his colleagues, Dr. Ekman and his colleagues, have been asked to consult on so many headline investigations, famous investigations, of murders and kidnappings that are in the papers every day. And he has more cases that come his way than he knows what to do with.
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