To me, this show is so interesting. You have a defined structure. There are certain things that are a given. There are specific traditions, and then it's fascinating to see how the guest deviates from the norm.
So Clooney makes his entrance, and he immediately shakes things up. He talks. It is a seemingly small thing, but I have never seen another guest do this before. He does the sort of chatter that you would imagine from a neighbor, a "Hi, how are you doing?" to the massive collective that is this audience before he makes his way over to James Lipton and shakes his hand.
Other moments that are different: Often there are people special to the guest in the front row that are acknowledged. No one is mentioned. At one point, in discussion of O, Brother, Where Art Thou? Lipton indicated that he liked a dance that Clooney said he made up in the film. Usually that would lead to an invitation for the star to do a few steps on stage. That line of thought is not pursued.
As always, it is fun to revisit the actor's work to this point. In this two-hour program, they showed many different scenes from Clooney's movies, some that I would now like to see again. Clooney offered up some interesting insights. For example, he had wanted to play Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck., but he said he could not have successfully conveyed the notion of a man carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. In addition, he talked about how he did commercials overseas in order to have the capital to make the independent movies where he would be paid scale. He also talked of wearing different hats—director, writer, actor—and how each one differed in the process.
In the final section, the Q and A with the students, he again did something I had never seen a guest do before. He set up a dynamic with the students. He used a few as examples and assigned them personalities that seemed to have very little to do with who they were as people. He created an interaction where they could be teased.
Whenever I think of Inside the Actors Studio, I always think of Robert Downey, Jr. When Robert Downey, Jr. came on this program, in my opinion, he blew the house down. He was funny and honest and spontaneous. He offered up information that went further than anything Lipton asked him. He seemed genuinely openhearted and had a real connection with James Lipton. I could watch that episode once a month and not tire of it.
Although I love Clooney's work, when I finished this episode, I had no need to ever see it again. I think it reflects an unfortunate trend of the show. It seems more and more that this show is about being a promotional platform, one that ties into the opening of a movie or, in this case, an Oscar campaign, than it is about coming on the show for the love of Lipton or just to talk about The Work in itself. Now that Clooney has been on, Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill have apparently filmed their episode to air as part of their campaign for Oscar. While I will definitely watch it and I'm sure I will find it fascinating in some way, it seems like it's straying from the original heart of this show.
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