Stormy Daniels as We Had Never Seen Her

There is a certain irony to the fact that the most consequential role Stormy Daniels, the adult entertainer at the heart of the Trump criminal trial, may ever play is taking place off screen. There are no cameras allowed in the courtroom where she is a crucial witness, as she tells her story of her sexual encounter with Mr. Trump and the hush-money payments and the nondisclosure agreement his fixer arranged to keep her silent.

That means that on Tuesday, the first day of her testimony, the watching world could catch only glimpses of her as she left State Supreme Court in Lower Manhattan. She was in all black, in a scoop-neck jumpsuit with cropped black trousers, chunky high-heel boots and a long shawl-like cardigan with a hood enveloping her now famous body. Her blond hair was caught up in the back with bits escaping to shield her face, and she was wearing black-frame glasses and little makeup.

On Thursday, when her cross-examination resumed, she was obscured by the same dark cloak, though underneath was a plain green dress. She wore her hair down and a necklace her daughter had made.

Ms. Daniels has often been discussed as the most colorful part of the case — the bringer of salacious detail, the source of the juicy tell-all. The defense has portrayed her as a money-chasing, fame-obsessed self-promoter. But in her court appearances she didn’t look particularly colorful. She looked the opposite.

While her messy hair and subdued makeup may have suggested a lack of calculation, however, the jumpsuit she was wearing on Day 1 was the same jumpsuit she wore in her cameo in the 2021 film “Bad President,” a satire in which Donald Trump sells his soul to the devil to win the 2016 election. Given that the actual Mr. Trump was sitting across the courtroom from her, that’s quite a subtext.

In her presentation in court, as in so much else, Ms. Daniels has refused to conform to expectations.