Guest Post by: Mardav

Inside The Actor’s Studio: Leading Men on DVD
3 DVD set from Shout! Factory
Hosted by James Lipton

This set of DVDs, featuring interviews with Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, and Russell Crowe from the Inside the Actors Studio television program on the Bravo channel, is a valuable asset for more than one potential audience. The series is loaded with interesting information for those who are curious about the lives and thoughts of the stars. Actors, many at the very pinnacle of their craft, reveal the private thoughts and insights that motivate—and in some cases—de-motivate them. This is not the common hash served up by the scandal tabloids, but deeply felt personal thoughts, feelings, and history.

Interviewer James Lipton has steered the program for more than a dozen years and he has the steady hand of a ship’s captain. He knows how to soften his subjects with easy and seemingly trivial questions so they are ready to answer the deeper probings. For instance, we learn that Russell Crowe is actually extremely shy, thinks of himself as a Gypsy storyteller, and that his least favorite phrase is ‘Hollywood bad boy’. Robert De Niro reveals that if he were to choose another profession, he would become a singer. Then we move on to the more serious stuff—the stuff that actors are made of.

Another audience for these programs is composed of people who are at various stages of the same profession as the interviewees. For the sake of full disclosure, I should mention that I, under another name, am one of these—a working professional actor. For us, whether we are in the beginning of our acting life or, like myself, many years into theatrical careers, the interviews are scattered with gold nuggets. The DVD set also adds great moments from the interviews that didn’t make it into the broadcast program.

Hearing Al Pacino talk about the creative process he uses to approach a role such as Scarface, or how he dealt with the problem of melancholy in the earliest part of his career by becoming a standup comic is surreal. Watching these masters talk about their lives and their craft can point out new paths of investigation for actors who have faced or are facing similar challenges.

In addition to instruction, the interviews also give a lot of encouragement and inspiration. The obstacles some of these great actors have overcome—again, real difficulties and not the distortions bandied about it the gossip rags—serve to remind us that art can continue and craft can grow in spite of many battering storms.

Technorati Tags: Leading Men, Inside the Actor’s Studio, James Lipton, Al Pacino, Scarface, Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, Russell Crowe, DVD Review

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