Inside the Actors Studio Host James Lipton on His Favorite Interview and Pimping in Paris

Of the people you’ve interviewed, who was best?
“What I’ve waited for is that one of my graduated students has achieved so much that he walks out and sits down on that chair next to me. It happened when Bradley Cooper walked out on that stage. We looked at each other and burst into tears. It was one of the greatest nights of my life.”

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You teach acting. What makes a great actor?
“A great actor is a combination of two things: talent and technique. When you have a person with enormous talent and you provide them with a great technique, that’s what makes a great actor. What you bring to the table is your talent. We provide technique. Marlon was a great actor because everything he did was unpredictable yet, in the end, inevitable. That’s my definition of [great] acting.”

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How did your involvement come about? You became friends with one of the prostitutes in Paris?
“We became great friends. When I ran out of money, I said, ‘I have to go home.’ She said, ‘No, you don’t. I’ll arrange for you.’ So she arranged for me to do it. I had to be okayed by the underworld; otherwise they would’ve found me floating in the Seine.”

Did you represent more than one girl?
“Yes, a whole bordello. I represented them all, but her especially. I did a roaring business, and I was able to live for a year. The French mecs didn’t exploit women. They represented them, like agents. And they took a cut. That’s how I lived. I was going through my rites of passage, no question about it. It was a great year of my life.”

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