What Will Famous People Talk About in the Future?

One of my favorite shows used to be Inside the Actors Studio. I say used to be because I don’t even know what channel it’s on now, if it even is on at all.

But back in the day it used to air on Bravo — Bravo was into this sort of thing then, an actor or actress talking to the ever-inquisitive host, James Lipton, about their life, their art, their… process.

The show began in the mid-90’s and was a radical concept. Back then movies were all about real drama, not super heroes, and there weren’t many television shows that discussed the nuts and bolts of acting as a craft. You might see actors on television, but they were simply promoting their movies.

Which went like this: Actor goes on Late Night talk show, tells a little story about his or her personal life, laugh laugh laugh, actor introduces a clip, then says Blah Blah Blah movie comes out Friday, go see it.

Inside the Actors Studio was great because James Lipton had been an actor himself. The show was taped live in front of students at the Actors Studio, in New York.

Watching it, you got the sense that everyone wanted to be there. The show was a platform to talk about the craft of acting and the life of the actor, what the actor might bring to a role. It didn’t promote movies, it promoted acting itself.