During his lifetime, James Lipton was a Guiding Light actor, a soap opera writer, a Broadway librettist and lyricist, a novelist, and Actors Studio dean — and it was in that lattermost capacity that the American public knew him best. From 1994 to his retirement in 2018, Lipton hosted Inside the Actors Studio on Bravo, asking Hollywood stars about their craft for the edification of his acting students and for his TV audience.
“I am not sure that there had been a program prior to Inside the Actors Studio that gave such sustained, deep attention to the labor of screen performance,” Henry Svec, an assistant professor at the University of Waterloo, told NBC News in 2020 following Lipton’s death. “Celebrity culture is so often about the private deeds or misdeeds of the people behind the images, but on Inside the Actors Studio, especially those first few seasons, there was a foregrounding of the craft of film acting that felt fresh and interesting.”
Inside the Actors Studio ended its run five years ago — going off the air on December 15, 2019, after one Lipton-less season on Ovation — and it seems unlikely we’ll see another program like it. See why below, where we’re listing our picks for the most memorable moments from the show.
1994: Inside the Actors Studio debuts with guest Paul Newman
Lipton taped his first Inside the Actors Studio episode in 1994, with cinematic leading man Paul Newman, who was then the Actors Studio’s president, as his first guest.
“What happened was that I wrote a letter to my colleagues and friends, people I worked with over the years, some of them in the Actors Studio, some not, and I got all these answers — Paul Newman, Sally Field, Dennis Hopper,” Lipton told NPR in 2008, reflecting on the show’s origins. “That was when I sent a message back into the professional world from which I had come and said, ‘Look, these people are liable to say something worth preserving. The only way we can do that is with cameras. Anybody interested?’ And that’s when the Bravo network stepped up.”
1998: Jack Lemmon gets candid about his struggles
When Lipton cited Jack Lemmon’s role in the film Days of Wine and Roses, the actor revealed that he, like his character, was an alcoholic.
“There’s a 10-second pause after that, and we simply look at each other,” Lipton said of that moment in a 2004 Deborah Norville Tonight interview. “Afterward in the green room, his wife, Felicia [Farr], said to me, ‘That’s the first time Jack has ever said that in public.’”
If you or someone you know has addiction issues, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration‘s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357). If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.
1998–1999: Bradley Cooper makes his first Actors Studio appearances — in the audience
Before he was an Oscar-nominated actor and producer, Bradley Cooper was an MFA student at the Actors Studio, and during Inside the Actors Studios’ fifth season, he was one of the audience members asking questions to future Silver Linings Playbook costar Robert De Niro and future Licorice Pizza costar Sean Penn, among other guests.
1999: James Lipton presents Steven Spielberg with a revelation about the director’s life
A question from Lipton helped Hollywood director Steven Spielberg connect the dots between his upbringing and his film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. “Your father was a computer scientist; your mother was a musician,” Lipton says. “When the spaceship lands, how do they communicate?”
The answer, as Spielberg buffs know, is computerized music.
“That’s a very good question,” Spielberg replied with a grin, “You see, I’d love to say, you know, I intended that, and I realized that was my mother and father, but not until this moment. … Thank you for that.”
1999–2006: Will Ferrell plays Lipton on Saturday Night Live
Will Ferrell played Lipton six times on SNL between 1996 and 2006, according to SNL Archives, including in the below sketch, where he interviewed Kate Hudson as Drew Barrymore.
“I love it,” Lipton said of Ferrell’s impersonation in a 2012 CNN interview. “It’s very flattering. And besides, he came on my show and did it. He interviewed me as me. … We’re good friends. And I think he’s got me cold, the rat.”
2001: Robin Williams ad-libs up a storm
When Robin Williams stopped by the studio, Lipton asked the comedian to explain his mental reflexes. “Are you thinking faster than the rest of us?” the host inquired. “What the hell is going on?”
Williams then improvised a comedy routine for several minutes, even using an audience member’s shawl as a prop as he toggled between characters and impressions (some of which have not aged well).
2003: The Simpsons cast channels their characters
Lipton interviewed The Simpsons cast members Dan Castellaneta, Nancy Cartwright, Harry Shearer, Julie Kavner, Yeardley Smith, and Hank Azaria in 2003, giving fans a chance to see the voice actors in action, interacting with each other’s characters and even switching back and forth between their own characters.
2004: Tom Cruise puts Lipton through the host’s questionnaire
Inside the Actors Studio episodes typically ended with Lipton asking his guest a 10-question questionnaire, one that Tom Cruise had the host answer in 2004. So now we know that Lipton was turned on by words (“our most precious natural resource,” he explained), turned off by humiliation (“especially toward a helpless child”), and a fan of silence (“the most underestimated quality of our lives”).
2011: Lipton and Cooper reunite for an emotional interview
Both Lipton and Cooper got misty-eyed in 2011 when the latter sat down for an Inside the Actors Studio interview.
Lipton later told Larry King he auditioned Cooper for the Actors Studio and always dreamt of a former student returning as a guest on the show. “The night that one of my students has achieved so much that he or she comes back and sits down in that chair next to me will be the night I’ve waited for since we started this thing,” he said. “And it turned out to be Bradley Cooper.”
