Inside the Actors Studio

Just identify anything you see, flora, fauna or whatever.

I'm sitting there, and I don't know why I remember this, but I had downloaded Inside the Actor's Studio with James Gandolfini, and I was sitting there listening to it.

And when I'm sitting there listening, then I had kind of taken my earbuds out because I started noticing them coming out, so I wanted to hear them and all that kind of stuff.

And I hear something crunch, some leaves crunching, and I remember going...

And on French television, there was a show where Bernard Pivot would interview authors, artists, intellectuals, on a regular basis, weekly, and you would always end every conversation with the same set of questions.

That's a tradition that James Lipton brought to Inside the Actor's Studio for American television.

So I would like to ask you those questions on the way out.

Are you ready?

Almost like that...

That aloof English guy, remember from Inside the Actors Studio, his name was James Lipton.

And he used to ask the same five questions like Brad Pitt, what do you want to hear God say when you get, you know, shit like that.

So inevitably, fast food is one of the things that I mentioned.

Somehow it knows.

So that's why I say, and in The War of Art, I talk about Inside the Actor's Studio, that show, which is probably gone now, but maybe people remember it.

The host is a guy named James Lipton, who I guess died, but he was a great host.

And he used to get an actor like Harvey Keitel or somebody on, and he would always ask them, how do you decide what your next role is going to be? If you're offered five different things, which one are you going to choose? And they almost always say, I choose the one that's going to make me stretch the most.

So then I proceeded to do what I'd done every Sunday morning over the course of my university days.

I turned on Inside the Actor's Studio with James Lipton.

And the guest that week was Forrest Whitaker, of all people.

And in his interview, he told the story how...

I remember it was something about what my favorite word was.

Oh, we probably played Inside the Actor's Studio.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Maybe.

So there's a...

While that brought up, there was a Louis C.K. thing where he's talking about inside the Actor's Studio, and he's like, "You know, you're not gonna see..." Like, you know, there's always at the end of the episode, which if people don't know, so the Actor's Studio was a show hosted where they, he would just have big name actors and there'd be acting students in the crowd.

So there's always students that have questions at the end.

And Louis C.K. was making a joke, and he's like, "The students never become famous actors." He's like, "You're not gonna see Sean Penn on there.

Like, did you...

Like, [laughs] I'm picturing that person in, like, an interview, like Inside the Actor's Studio or something.

They're like, "How did you feel when you saw this very vibrant and terrifying thriller on the big screen for the first time?" And they just lean in and they're like, "Good."

Yeah.