Yeah, I’ve had it done many times – and since your pupil is dilated you are super-sensitive to light (it gives me migraines) so it seems particularly unlikely to do right before a big interview…
For the record, I also doubt that she was tripping on Acid – and I’m not implying that she was in some trippy state. There are probably a bunch of other drugs that do this, but my pharmacological background is exceedingly shallow, so i ask the often better informed boing boing community if they have any insights.
… the name “bella donna” is derived from Italian and means “beautiful woman” because the herb was used in eye-drops by women to dilate the pupils of the eyes to make them appear seductive.
Apparently it’s still used today for medicine for a bunch of things, although considered unsafe.
from webmd:
BELLADONNA OVERVIEW INFORMATION
Belladonna is a plant. The leaf and root are used to make medicine.
The name “belladonna” means “beautiful lady,” and was chosen because of a risky practice in Italy. The belladonna berry juice was used historically in Italy to enlarge the pupils of women, giving them a striking appearance. This was not a good idea, because belladonna can be poisonous.
Though widely regarded as unsafe, belladonna is used as a sedative, to stop bronchial spasms in asthma and whooping cough, and as a cold and hay fever remedy. It is also used for Parkinson’s disease, colic, motion sickness, and as a painkiller.
Belladonna is used in ointments that are applied to the skin for joint pain (rheumatism), leg pain caused by a disc in the backbone pushing on the sciatic nerve (sciatica), and nerve pain (neuralgia). Belladonna is also used in plasters (medicine-filled gauze applied to the skin) for treating psychiatric disorders, a behavior disorder called hyperkinesis, excessive sweating (hyperhidrosis), and bronchial asthma.
Rectally, belladonna is used in hemorrhoid suppositories.
How does it work?
Belladonna has chemicals that can block functions of the body’s nervous system. Some of the bodily functions regulated by the nervous system include salivation, sweating, pupil size, urination, digestive functions, and others.
Edit: Not that I think that’s the cause in this case. It was just interesting to find out that people do still use belladonna.
And some clever person on Fark pointed me to what may be the answer: Lorazepam whose “best-known indication is the short-term management of severe anxiety”
He did address the eye dilation in the article, which nobody seems to have read. Basically, it’s a thing people do for interviews (using eye drops of some kind) to make themselves seem more attractive (bigger pupils = more attractive). That’s his assumption in this case, anyway.
In the case of another of his articles I just read, he said that Jessica Chastain is clearly sexually attracted to Matt Damon because of her large pupils when she was on a talk show with him. So he isn’t totally reliable or consistent on these things.
Though my original post is now gone, I apologize for the offense I gave with my choice of words, and state for the record that porn actresses are actresses. They learn lines and portray characters.
I believe I was not off topic, however.
I was responding to suggestions above that since Daniels is an actress, she could easily fool an observer. Being in the business, though, doesn’t necessarily translate to the ability to fool an expert in body language, I feel this reflects the industry’s tendency to select for attributes that are, at best, unrelated to dramatic excellence.
The point may well be moot, anyway: I defer to commenters who suggest that the body-language guy overstates his own certainty. It was nice to think that he bolstered Daniels’s story, but I’m sure Trump’s guilt is clear enough without relying on shaky ‘experts.’
If you stroll down to the Prado and carefully examine the eyes of Goya’s two ‘Maja’ paintings, the clothed version has more dilated pupils than the naked version.
That’s the point where the guards threw me out.
You know I learned recently that getting socked in the face by his friend as a teen is what led David bowie to have a permanently dilated left retina, which apparently he was ultimately thankful for because it became a signature aspect of his often other-worldly look.
