Why I hate Inside the Actors Studio

I always used to get excited whenever there was an episode of the show on TV. James Lipton’s smug little face asking the tough questions, it was great. On the surface it’s brilliant, a wonderful way to gain a perspective on the life and craft of particular actors.

And then I started to really listen, to listen to the questions and realised this was little more than a chat show.

This show was pretending to have some kind of educational value, and was packaged by whichever institution currently owns the Actors Studio name (it has changed a great deal) as some kind of worthy pedagogic experience for their students.

But it isn’t, it’s just like Oprah, it’s an opportunity, a voyeuristic opportunity to peek inside the lives of our favourite famous actors, under the false and fake guise of some kind of a reflection, introspection, or insight into the actor’s craft and practice but it’s nothing of the sort.

Discussing this earlier on Facebook my friend Helen Raw made a good point that it would be interesting to see the actors actually teaching a class.

But that would be far too revealing because it would become very evident very quickly, very clearly that these luminaries do not know how they did what they did and have no little or no idea how to communicate that to someone else.

This is very evidently demonstrated at the end of each episode, after all the sugary ass kissing is over. Lipton tells the actor they are now being given time with their class. It’s horrible. What follows is usually the most tepid, bland, well-meaning platitudes of utter crap possibly ever broadcast. Most of the advice in this segment is entirely useless. I say most, occasionally, there is a little bit of honesty. You see the actor can’t tell the truth. They can’t destroy their public and self image of themselves as a serious actor by actually saying ‘I don’t know’.

The questions from some of the students are earnest bordering on sycophantic, idiotic bordering on brain dead.

I hate Inside the Actors Studio, it is just an interview with actor and dressed up as some kind of insightful pedagogic experience and it’s nothing nothing nothing of the sort.

It is ruse and as such I think it was great disservice to the actor, the reputation and history of the actors studio and i think it does more damage and harm than good to our understanding of what acting is and what the craft and business of acting involves.