Chilly, calculating eyes are fairly common in any social business environment. Some peepers may radiate inner warmth or sincerity, of course, but many don’t. I personally don’t think you can really “read” anyone’s eyes unless you have close proximity. And yet Christian Bale once (allegedly) claimed he could sense coldness or emptiness behind Tom Cruise‘s eyes. So if Bale went there, it’s fair to ask the HE community who else seems to have a certain robotic vacancy behind the eyes.

Not discerning or shrewd eyes — that’s something else. I mean eyes that block and tell you nothing.

“Everyone reflexively smiles when they meet people socially. Some smile slightly, some a little too much but often with the same glazed eyes. Not much sincerity offered or expected. Mostly. Their teeth are gleaming but their eyes are scanning you like a Manhattan detective, trying to assess your nature or strengths or potential threat levels in the space of two or three seconds.

“I felt this when I met CAA honcho Mike Ovitz in ’88 — he had the eyes of a timber wolf. The eyes of MPAA president Jack Valenti, whom I met in ’84 at the Sportsmen’s Lodge, weren’t as feral but he was definitely sizing me up.” — posted on 9.25.16.

“You got cop’s eyes” — Julie Harris to Paul Newman in Jack Smight‘s Harper (’66).

“I walked with him, right beside him, back into the hotel. And his eyes rested upon mine a couple of times. He didn’t know me well, only slightly. And his eyes were absolutely cold, always…really cold gray. The smile was in the [eye] crinkles and in the mouth and the big teeth, but the eyes always remained, I always thought, very cold and calculating.” — Robert MacNeil on JFK on 11.22.63, 2:10 to 2:31, emmytvlegends.org.