Inside The Actors Studio’s return is a welcome one

Inside The Actors Studio is returning to TV this fall, bringing back an underappreciated series that never got its due or reached its full potential.

TV and film fans will be able to go back Inside The Actors Studio in October—and it’s about time, as we’ll explore in this week’s Deeper Cut.

There’s a whole generation of entertainment buffs who probably have never heard of Inside The Actors Studio. The series started 25 years ago, when James Lipton brought TV audiences into the Actors Studio Drama School so they could sit in on an interview with Paul Newman. What began as a televised seminar became the purest look into the entertainment industry there’s ever been.

Unfortunately, its own story has been a bittersweet one, as changes in the business and changes in media left the show fading from the spotlight until cable network Ovation announced in April it had ordered a new season.

Frankly, that’s a blessing for anyone who enjoys film, television or the stage. The series provided a platform to learn more about some of the biggest names, in their own words, in detail and without the pomp and circumstance of a TV talk show interview. No one was there just to plug a project; it was a classroom first and a TV show second.

That meant fans actually learned things, like how an actor came by a particular role or why they made a certain choice that defined that part forever. And then, of course, there were the purely fun answers when Lipton pulled out the Bernard Pivot questionnaire at the end of every talk, asking things like “What is your favorite curse word?”

Inside The Actors Studio was a masterclass, well before such things were accessible through the Internet. If you wanted to be an actor, it was essentially sitting in on Lipton’s seminar for free, on your living room couch. But even if you didn’t, it enriched your understanding of the star and their work, by telling you things you almost certainly didn’t know and putting them into perspective.

For example, when Sir Anthony Hopkins appeared, Lipton was able to recite the exact address of where Hopkins was born in Wales. You don’t get that on a late-night chat show.

But Lipton, the tour guide through everyone’s journey into Hollywood, was the anti-talk show host. He slowed down the pace, quieted down the noise, and focused in on conversation. It was clear with every interview that he did his research, and wanted to tell each person’s story and bring out what made them worth having on the stage.

Because he cared, the interview subjects then opened up to him, and because they opened up, the students and the viewers felt like they were—well, inside. It was a labor of love, not of advertising or attention.

The people who sat opposite Lipton, at least at first, were living legends. They were in a class of their own. After Newman, guests during the first two seasons included Stephen Sondheim, Sidney Lumet, William Goldman, Arthur Miller, Carol Burnett and Gene Wilder.

Other major names who visited the Actors Studio early on were Christopher Reeve, Shirley MacLaine, Lauren Bacall, Steven Spielberg, and the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman. This was a murderers’ row of talent, both in front of and behind the camera, all of whom were willing to share their experiences — and a little bit of themselves — with those who wanted to learn.

But Inside The Actors Studio was never a mainstream show. It put Bravo on the map, back before the arts and entertainment channel became the Real Housewives network. But as reality TV rose to prominence, and networks looked for social media buzz, the next big thing wasn’t watching an hour-long interview on a university stage.

And thus, a great series began to fade away. Some of its problems came with age: the show was of a time before on demand, DVR and digital downloads, so unless you remembered when it was on, you missed many of those early episodes forever. Bravo only released a handful of DVDs and they were only selected installments, without many of the best ones.

But there were less and less episodes made each season. In the last decade, no season has had more than seven episodes, with the installments sometimes airing months apart. When they did make it to air, they were on an erratic schedule, often with very little promotion. In the latest cycle, two episodes premiered on two consecutive weeks in February 2018 — then the next didn’t air till June, and the one after that until December.

The quality of guests, too, skewed more toward selecting popular shows and stars. Having Sean Combs (better known as P. Diddy) or the cast of Glee on was perfectly fine and definitely entertaining, but not on the same level as featuring Faye Dunaway or Martin Scorsese. It felt like Inside The Actors Studio had been left behind to fade away, and when it did appear, it was more like an entertainment program than a profound one.

And this show deserved much better than that. This was the series that allowed viewers to be reminded of why they fell in love with TV, movies and the stage in the first place, that gave us then-unprecedented access to not only a star’s work but to get to know them as a person, too. James Lipton, serving as the ears and mouth of the audience, let us feel like we were the ones sitting across from the people we looked up to. It was an oral history, in a way, and in so doing carved out its own place in entertainment history.

Luckily, Ovation has rescued Inside The Actors Studio and its plans for the revival are promising. While they haven’t revealed the full lineup of guests or hosts (Lipton retired last year), one of the new episodes features two-time Golden Globe nominee David Oyelowo. It’ll be fascinating for film buffs to learn how he went from starring as MI5 officer Danny Hunter in the British thriller Spooks to becoming an A-list movie star who portrayed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma.

Imagine the other people that the network could potentially line up. How about Jon Favreau and his amazing transition from underrated actor to Marvel director? Let him be interviewed by his old friend Vince Vaughn. Or Kerry Washington, for her perspective not only on acting but activism. Or Robert and Michelle King talking about how they’ve gone from legal drama in The Good Wife to a sharp political satire in The Good Fight. There are so many options, and now with iTunes and DVR and social media, so many ways to make sure these stories aren’t lost again.

But that’s what Inside The Actors Studio is for: To shine a spotlight on the actors, not because they already have one, but because audiences can learn from them and appreciate them better when we know them. It’s a platform for knowledge, growth, and a renewed understanding of why arts are so revered in our culture—because of the impact they have on people’s lives. With this show coming back, every fan is better off.

Inside The Actors Studio premieres Oct. 13 on Ovation. Find the next Deeper Cut every Wednesday in the Entertainment category at FanSided.