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Inside the Actors Studio: Johnny Depp
THE SHOW:
Inside the Actors Studio has been running on the Bravo Network for nearly fourteen years now. An outcropping of the famous acting school that has been active since the middle of the last century, it is an open classroom, an extension of the drama department coursework at the New School in New York. The format has been the same since the beginning: an actor stops by, sits for an hour or more with host James Lipton discussing his or her career, Lipton asks the guest a series of questions originally invented by Marcel Proust, and then the students in the audience ask a few questions about craft.
In 2002, as part of the show's eighth season, Johnny Depp participated in the forum, and it's that episode that makes up the new Inside the Actors Studio: Johnny Depp. At that point in the actor's history, his most recent films were Chocolat, which is discussed briefly, and Blow, which only comes up in the collection of photos that illustrates Lipton's introduction of the performer.
Depp is a good subject, openly guarded and shy, thoughtfully considering his answers and what he is willing to share. A droll sense of humor emerges the more comfortable he gets in the hot seat. James Lipton's approach of going from birth through early life and career and all the way to the actor's most recent project serves to put the subject at ease. The questions of childhood and parentage work as a kind of nest liner, a reassurance that the interviewee is in a place he can feel safe being candid.
There is not a lot to dissect here. The show runs a little over fifty minutes, and Depp's perspective is wholly unique, as anyone who has tracked his choices of acting roles will already know. It would have been preferable to get some kind of updated edition, covering his transition into blockbuster superstar in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and his further explorations with his regular collaborator, Tim Burton, up to and including the forthcoming Sweeney Todd. Perhaps this is something to consider for future volumes of the series (there have been two boxed sets and a couple of individual releases like this one so far). Even if the actor can't come back to the classroom, maybe Lipton could go to the actor for a quick catch-up.
Still, Inside the Actors Studio: Johnny Depp is what it is. I really like Johnny Depp (Lipton can count me among the teenagers that worshipped him on 21 Jump Street), and I like hearing artisans discuss their craft. Inside the Actors Studio is an unadorned platform for that to happen, and this selection in particular is free of hype, far more straightforward than your average talk show or promotional interview.
THE DVD
Video:
Inside the Actors Studio: Johnny Depp is shown at its original fullscreen aspect ratio. Shot for television, the picture quality is average. It's not really a special effects venue, so the DVD really only requires a conscientious transfer, and that's what we get here.
Sound:
A very standard stereo mix with Closed Captioning.
Extras:
Unlike previous Inside the Actors Studio releases, the Johnny Depp disc has no deleted scenes. The only extra here is James Lipton's new video introduction that plays before the episode. That's it. Not even a scene selection menu.
The DVD is packaged in a clear plastic case with a printed outer slipcover.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Recommended. Inside the Actors Studio: Johnny Depp is another excellent choice in the Shout! Factory series of DVD selections from the long-running television series. A show of this kind is only as good as its guests, and Johnny Depp has an excellent filmography worthy of study. An involving hour of conversation.
Jamie S. Rich is a novelist and comic book writer. He is best known for his collaborations with Joelle Jones, including the hardboiled crime comic book You Have Killed Me, the challenging romance 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, and the 2007 prose novel Have You Seen the Horizon Lately?, for which Jones did the cover. All three were published by Oni Press. His most recent projects include the futuristic romance A Boy and a Girl with Natalie Nourigat; Archer Coe and the Thousand Natural Shocks, a loopy crime tale drawn by Dan Christensen; and the horror miniseries Madame Frankenstein, a collaboration with Megan Levens. Follow Rich's blog at Confessions123.com.
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