Exclusive: Bruce Dern explains his ‘Nebraska’ character’s backstory on ‘Inside the Actors Studio’

“Nebraska” star Bruce Dern has said the same thing all season when the conversation has inevitably turned to his personal history as an actor: “I knew if you wanted to be an actor, you had to do three things. You had to go to New York, you had to try to get into the Actors Studio, and you had to work for Mr. Kazan.”

He pulled all that off and tomorrow he gets a bit of a homecoming as he and daughter Laura will be appearing on Bravo’s “Inside the Actors Studio” with James Lipton. The episode will air at 7pm ET/PT.

Paramount has provided us with an exclusive clip from the discussion in advance of the airing. In it you can hear Dern explain the backstory he cooked up for the character of Woody Grant in the film, how he put some of his own track racing background into the character, and how, above all, he wanted their to be notes of fairness in Woody’s dealings with and understanding of the world.

“When you cross the Mississippi and go west in America, two things become apparent: honesty and fairness,” Dern says in the clip. “That’s what I felt Woody was.”

Check out more in the clip embedded at the top of this post.

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