Tim Roth

Tim Roth understands victims and victimizers alike. As a child, he was abused by someone he won't name, except to say it wasn't either of his parents. Throughout his career, he has played both brutal victimizers (in his Academy Award-nominated turn as Rob Roy's villain, for example,) and the horribly victimized (most notably as a cop in Reservoir Dogs and a home-invasion victim in Funny Games).

Roth has a strange gift for making both extremes empathetic: Is there a more Rothian character than Pulp Fiction's would-be stickup man, Pumpkin? At first he earns our revulsion, but by the end of the film, as he looks down the barrel of Samuel L. Jackson's gun, we fear for his life.

The actor's exploration of victims and victimizers continues in his first television series, Lie to Me, which airs its penultimate episode Wednesday (9 pm/ET, Fox) and concludes its first season next week. The show offers an alternative to 24's violent interrogation scenes and those of other more standard crime procedurals. Roth plays Cal Lightman, an expert at reading emotions who gets suspects to confess to even the worst crimes without laying a hand on them. read more 17 Comments

TVGuide.com: As nice as it was to have the Idol lead-in, are you now nervous about having to kick off the night at 8 o'clock?
Kelli Williams: There's always a little concern when they start moving your show around, but it's good that we're at least on the same night. But yeah, I have one little concern. We were worried that maybe we'd lose some of the more adult themes, but so far so good!

TVGuide.com: Speaking of Idol, I have noticed that Simon Cowell often uses his middle finger to scratch his nose. Discuss.
Williams: Oh, he's consciously flipping people off! That's interesting... For a couple of months ... read more 1 Comment

Lie to Me's Tim Roth says his colleagues on the new Fox drama sometimes talk about The Mentalist, the CBS hit to which it's already drawn comparisons. But he's says he's not worried.
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