I'll admit that I'm a real sucker for interview shows. I've been a fan of "Inside the Actor's Studio" for years, so I was really looking forward to Professor Richard Brown's series of interviews with (mostly) well-respected actors, and for the most part, this disc delivered. I got "Leading Men," which contained interviews with George Clooney, Josh Lucas (huh?), Daniel Day-Lewis and Dennis Quaid.
Clooney's interview provided a lot of interesting information about his background. I thought his description of his childhood and his idealistic journalist father really explained a lot about the kind of public figure the actor is today, and why he's taken on so many of the recent projects he has, like Syriana and Good Night and Good Luck. While he still seemed pretty self-important, Clooney's view that his stardom has everything to do with luck and ability, and less to do with arrogance was a great point of view to hear. It seems as though Clooney is very grateful that he's gotten to where he is today, and realizes that without the occurence of certain events, he might still be doing dozens of failed television pilots.
Josh Lucas' appearance was very hard for me to understand. I know he's been working for a number of years now, but as far as I can tell, he hasn't done anything that noteworthy. Whenever I've seen Lucas in a film, it's a supporting (or barely noticeable) role in a good movie like "American Psycho" or "A Beautiful Mind," or a bigger role in a terrible movie (see "Sweet Home Alabama"). I'm not sure what made Lucas think he was entitled to seem like a "serious actor" when talking with Brown, but all he succeeded in doing was making himself seem more puffed-up than he has any right to be. I thought this one was a definite miss in the series.
Day-Lewis, on the other hand, was the interview I'd anticipated the most, and the one that I felt had the most in-depth disucssion of the actual craft of acting. Method actors have always fascinated me, and Day-Lewis is really the method actor's method actor. This is the guy who, on the set of "In the Name of the Father" spent the night being screwed around with in a jail cell and interrogated by British Special Branch officers for several hours just to better understand his character. That's some hard core devotion right there.
Dennis Quaid's interview was by far the most enjoyable. It was clear the crowd got a big kick out of seeing him talk to Brown, and Quaid, in turn, seemed genuinely pleased at the audience's enthusiasm. His answers seemed very straightforward and honest, and he came off as a very nice, genuine sort of guy. I get the feeling that Quaid is the kind of guy all the other guys want to have a drink with. His body of work hasn't been consistently great (there'll always be "Dragonheart," after all), but Quaid was so charming and willing to talk that I ended up not caring.