Silly / Absurd

#84 · Pretend cigarette

Hold between two fingers and do your best 1950s movie star impression. No smoke, no smell, maximum drama.

Should you need to portray a 1940s film-noir detective without taking up smoking, a chopstick held between the index and middle finger does the entire job. It is the right length, roughly the right colour, and it holds the hand in exactly the shape the performance depends on.

Why it works

What reads as 'smoking' on screen is almost entirely posture and gesture rather than the cigarette itself - the two-finger hold, the pause before speaking, the hand drifting away from the face. A prop only has to be the right size and shape to let the hand do that. This is why stage productions have used herbal and prop cigarettes for decades without anyone in row F noticing.

Tips & warnings

• A small twist of red tissue at the tip sells it from more than about two metres away.
• The pause matters more than the prop. Nobody ever looked cool inhaling quickly.
• Smoking genuinely is as bad for you as you have been told. This is a prop and nothing more.