Laurence Fishburne pays tribute to James Lipton: "He not only loved the craft of acting, but he really adored actors"

The Hollywood Reporter

Fishburne says he was initially hesitant to appear on Inside the Actors Studio in 1998. "But then, after seeing the show a bunch of times, seeing many of my friends and people I’ve worked with doing it, I was like, 'Oh, yeah, I can get into that,'" Fishburne tells The Hollywood Reporter, in a tribute to Lipton, who died Monday at age 93. "And when I got a chance to sit with him (in 1998) I found him really engaging and charming and funny and thoughtful. He not only loved the craft of acting, but he really adored actors. And, you know, that’s always nice. After the show, he asked me to have dinner with him and his wife. And he was even better offscreen than he was on, if you can imagine that. On camera, you just got to spend an hour with him and he was the person doing the interview. But during dinner, it felt like we were old friends. I felt like I was at home with him. I mean, the fact that he even invited me to dinner afterwards was amazing. I guess I was a little nervous about that, too, because he’s interviewed truly, truly great actors and you don’t want to come off like 'I’m the greatest' just because I’d been on Inside the Actors Studio."

ALSO:

• Actors Studio co-president and Oscar winner Ellen Burstyn on James Lipton: "I have to say that Jim did all the work on the show," she says. "He knew everybody and he got all the guests and arranged for the venue and so forth. And of course he did the interviews. He researched every one of those interviews — he wrote his notes on those blue cards. And there had never been an interview show like it. It was designed for the students to talk about craft. It wasn’t a gossip show. It wasn’t about getting the job and what happened on the set. It was all about the craft. And everybody wanted to be on the show. Whoever had a movie coming out, they wanted to publicize it on Inside the Actors. I can’t remember what year I did it (1996), but everybody wanted to be interviewed by Jim."
• French TV icon Bernard Pivot, whose 10 questions was a staple of each Actors Studio episode, recalls their "mutual admiration" for each other: "One day I received a letter from James Lipton — who I hadn’t yet met — asking me if he could use the 10-question format from my show Bouillon de culture on his new program Inside the Actors Studio," says Pivot. "Apparently he had seen Bouillon de culture, as well as my literary interview show Apostrophes, aired on French-language university programs in the U.S., and he found them inspiring. Of course I said yes to him, though I was very surprised when I saw his show for the first time and he mentioned my name. What’s extraordinary is that he could have contented himself with citing me on the first episode, but every time he would say that the questions came from 'Bernard Pivot’s Bouillon de culture' in his lovely accent. And so I managed to become famous in the U.S. because of James’ show, even though I was never on it myself."