This 2001 clip of Robin Williams on Inside the Actor's Studio is making the rounds today, for obvious reasons. In it, James Lipton asks Williams, "If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?"
Not everyone is aware that James Lipton's Inside The Actors Studio is also a class that acting students attend regularly. Last night on the Late Show, Bradley Cooper revealed the time he embarrassed himself in front of Robert De Niro.
Look into the eyes of Inside the Actors Studio host James Lipton, and what do you see? A wild sycophancy that has led the man to the edge of a nervous breakdown, perhaps?
Now that footage of Daniel Radcliffe's nude performance in Equus has hit the interwebs, audiences everywhere have discovered that what the young wizard lacks in wand, he certainly makes up for in sheer balls. It's for precisely that reason that while appearing on Inside the Actor's Studio this week, Radcliffe gave James Lipton a surprising answer to the self-posed question, "Are you ever worried about getting an erection onstage?"Quite the opposite, said Radcliffe, who explained that it would at least add some inches to his much-scrutinized manhood. Take heart, Dan — at least that shrinkage brings you ever closer to your long-held dream of playing Hermione!
Dave Chappelle's most recent AWOL streak ends Monday on Bravo, when he will appear on the 200th episode of Inside the Actors Studio. Except, in a clever twist we're presuming occurred only because Diana Ross was unavailable, Chappelle will interview Lipton for the whole show.Today we got a glimpse of the comic delivering the episode's customary windy introduction, which comes as close as we've been to a Chappelle performance in years — properly reverential of Lipton's mile-long resume (even the "literary perennial An Exaltation of Larks," a title no one can read with a straight face) while dropping random bursts of profanity and invective when necessary. The only thing that likely would have improved this would have been a Chappelle-esque three-hour wait for Lipton's arrival, followed by a chain-smoking binge of payback from their last tilt in 2005. Or maybe that comes later in the episode. Either way, congrats, Jim! [Bravo]
Just when we thought we'd leave well-enough alone and let The Love Guru speak for itself on opening day, a pair of related developments stoked another confounded binge of concern around Defamer HQ. This morning came the film's first review in Variety, whose Brian Lowry offered an eyebrow-singeing, backhandedly optimistic pan forecasting Paramount's first flop of the summer:
James Lipton, who takes time off of his busy schedule of being a horrendous bore to ask actors dumb questions on Bravo's "Inside the Actor's Studio," wrote a memoir called "Inside Inside." We'll visit it in due time. In the interim, to answer the question, or rather the degree, of Mr. Lipton's pretentious hideosity, we'll have to rely on a recent New York magazine interview conducted by ex-BlackBook editor William Georgiades "on the deck of of Lipton's Bridgehampton home, where he also sang in Latin."
As is their custom in the run-up to various awards ceremonies, Newsweek has once again assembled a panel of nominees to discuss issues important to the modern kudos-hopeful, allowing their guests a rare chance to gather together to discuss their craft and make the occasional comment about the absurdity of introducing the notion of competition into their collaborative art form. In their new Emmy Roundtable piece, they've hoarded Masi Oka of Heroes, Entourage's Jeremy Piven, Brothers & Sisters' Sally Field, and Ugly Betty's America Ferrera for the chat, and it didn't take long for Piven, last year's Best Supporting Actor winner for his portrayal of lovable, Gaysian-haranguing agent Ari Gold, to express his frustration over not having more input into creative decisions that might result in more screentime:
