A L S O_.T O D A Y Blue Glow When Scully met Mulder: the "X-Files" pilot RECENTLY IN ENTERTAINMENT Out of Sight Reviewed by Charles Taylor George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez sizzle with sexy confidence (06/26/98) Heroine chic By Lori Leibovich Ally Sheedy talks about the hard road to "High Art" (06/25/98) Doctor Dolittle Reviewed by Stephanie Zacharek Eddie Murphy and talking critters have fun with barnyard humor (06/25/98) The A-Team By Jonathan Curiel A tour of Africa's biggest pop stars becomes the biggest musical bargain in America (06/24/98) Sharps & Flats Reviews of new CDs by Billy Bragg and Wilco, Neil Finn, Spinanes, Ellis Marsalis, Robert Pollard and Genesis (06/24/98) BROWSE THE SARAH VOWELL ARCHIVES

[ A M E R I C A N _.S Q U I R M__B Y__S A R A H_.V O W E L L ] - - - - - - - - - The celebrity interview on television talk shows is a no man's land, a dissatisfying grab bag of movie plugs and polite queries into a performer's personal affairs that usually just makes their art and life seem flat. However, two marginal celebrity interview shows on two marginal cable channels miraculously escape the prison of meaningless prattle. The reason Bravo's "Inside the Actors Studio" and the Independent Film Channel's new "Fishing With John" are so compelling is that they occupy opposite extremes of chatting up the famous. The former has the audacity to treat acting as a valid job; the latter forgets art altogether and relies on atmospheric episodes of movie stars hanging out, roughing it, i.e., being "themselves." The premise of "Inside the Actors Studio" is simple: Host James Lipton sits onstage at New York's New School for an hour and interviews a noted actor before an audience of theater students. At the end of the interview, the students may ask the actor questions. The show is often pretentious and frequently uncomfortable, but the reason I can't take my eyes off it is that Lipton may be the weirdest man on TV. He has those drill-bit eyes that can look through lead, and his mellifluous voice is nearly a cliché. Still, this mystery man can somehow make Meg Ryan interesting. His spell will trick you into thinking of Alec Baldwin as one of the intellectual giants of our time. I've been watching "Actors Studio" closely for months now trying to figure out how this works, how a guy who is unlikable on so many levels can pull this off. It boils down to two things. First, he's one of the great ass-kissers of the 20th century, and his compliments can be so over-the-top that he embarrasses his subjects into submission. He makes them work. If someone was sitting there on national TV describing you as the second coming, wouldn't you reach deep into yourself for a witty comeback? One of the best parts of the show is the beginning, when the poor thespian has to squirm quietly while Lipton pours on a syrupy reverie of his or her career. So the subject bonds instantly with the live audience, because there's always a can-you-believe-this-guy glance into the crowd. A recent appearance by Broadway and movie star Nathan Lane, for example, began with this Lipton doozy: "We're going to try to track tonight the evolution of that most mysterious of talents -- the gift to make us laugh. And, in the case of an even more exclusive chosen few like Chaplin, the gift to make us cry." So right away poor Nathan Lane has Charlie Chaplin to live up to. Soon, he's regarding Lipton with mock horror, mugging, "There's no urine test involved in this, is there? I'm a little nervous. I wanna do well!" The second weapon Lipton wields is that he somehow gets his hands on what must be the FBI files on each actor. He knows everything about them -- what their parents had for breakfast on the morning of their conception, where they're from, who they studied with. He rallies citations from colleagues and critics. Often the most dazzlingly strange moments happen when he combines his skills of flattery and research to whip out a quotation from some notable gushing about the subject's grandeur. For Lane, he trots out a quote from Paul Rudnick, who calls him a "secret genius." Lipton also relishes that part of an interview, which moves chronologically from training through stardom, when he arrives at the actor's breakthrough role. He looks deep into Willem Dafoe's eyes, pauses, glares at the audience, and quietly, theatrically, understates something like, "And then. You did a little film called ... 'Platoon.'" Insert wild audience applause here. I like to imagine him interviewing God, getting past the Chaos portion of His career and lingering over the line, "And then. You created a little planet called ... Earth." My favorite Lipton moment of all time was his response to Shirley MacLaine's point that she got around not being beautiful by being talented and athletic, to which Lipton took a long conspiratorial gaze across the audience and then turned back at her, proclaiming, "I think. We. Would have. To disagree with you." I laughed for 10 whole minutes, it was so baldly disgusting. I'll admit to being shallow enough that I watch the show for just such outbursts, and there are enough of them to keep any rubbernecker fulfilled. But "Actors Studio" admirably pursues knowledge about how art works and what it does to the people making it. In the Nathan Lane interview, the actor talks plainly at one point of a turning point in his work. He describes being on stage during a scene in Terrence McNally's "Lisbon Traviata." His character is on the phone with a man who hasn't heard of Maria Callas, trying to explain what she means to him. "The line was, 'She's given me so much,'" Lane remembers. "And I had, like, a breakdown ... It was like a floodgate of emotion, the kind of emotion I had never really experienced onstage before ... It was so much tied in with what the play had meant to me, what the play had done for me professionally and personally ... It was a very freeing moment," in which he recalls "not feeling so afraid of emotion onstage." You're never going to get that kind of soul-searching insight on Leno. I'm hardly the biggest Nathan Lane fan on earth, but listening to him describe what that night meant to him reminded me and everyone watching why we should care about art in the first place -- because it teaches us things, and maybe its greatest lesson is how to be open, be free. Even though it's an ocean away from the baroque gushings and somber ponderings of "Inside the Actors Studio," I have high hopes for "Fishing With John." What could be more delightfully perverse than a fishing show whose host is hipster musician John Lurie of Lounge Lizards and Jim Jarmusch film fame? Based on the second episode, in which Lurie invites Tom Waits to go after red snapper in Jamaica, this could shape up into the subtlest show on TV. (The episode airing tonight features actor Matt Dillon.) After the laconic theme song, which has Lurie almost whispering, "Fishing with John/Fishing with John/Fishing with John" over a keyboard lullaby, an image of jungle flowers is narrated by a nature documentary voice saying, so straight, "Life is beautiful. For some more than others. Every day of our lives. Ahh, fishing." Then the camera swoops in on Lurie and Waits paddling a canoe, walking to a friend's house and setting off the next morning for what Waits calls "another day of adventure, John." This takes about 10 minutes -- an eternity in a half-hour show. Hardly anything happens. Occasionally, the narrator, Robb Webb, butts in with a deadpan crack such as, "There is nothing like fresh air with a rod in your hand." Low on plot, short on dialogue, "Fishing With John" is still quietly fascinating and dryly hilarious. There is, of course, a lot of fishing. If you only listen to Waits' songs, you might think of him as a sweet drunk engaged in despair. Though his songs are darkly theatrical, his presence is amiable and assured. When Lurie tells him he has to hook his live bait between its eyes, Waits balks, "Why don't you do it? He's already looked at me. I can't do it now. We have a relationship." If Waits, who has acted in films by Jarmusch and Robert Altman, makes his appearance on "Inside the Actors Studio," I can't imagine Lipton quipping, "And then. You did a little show called ... 'Fishing With John.'" And yet the two shows work as complements, one asking the big questions and indulging in grand gestures, the other revealing the subject's personality through the most minimal, absurd means. When Waits makes friends with his fish, or Lane talks about finding freedom onstage, you get something all too rare on talk TV: a glimpse at where art comes from. SALON | June 29, 1998 "Inside the Actor's Studio," Sunday at 9 p.m. and midnight; Thursday at midnight; Friday at 5 a.m., Bravo "Fishing With John," Monday at 8:30 p.m. through July 20, Independent Film Channel