John Cleese gives good Seesmic, Dennis Hopper too

We're liking the cool new trend wherein big-time celebrities submit to informal, Web-based interviews, taking live questions directly from the virtual audience. The video site Seesmic has recently featured substantial interviews with John Cleese and Dennis Hopper. Though Cleese doesn't seem to understand the exact nature of the technology underlying the interview, he cheerfully submits to questions he's probably answered 10,000 times -- about how much of "Monty Python" was ad-libbed, whether he likes "Fawlty Towers" better, when or whether there will be a "Life of Brian" musical and, of course, the sum of 140 and 170.

In his interview with a French journalist, Hopper is somewhat less effusive -- evidenced by his trouble coming up with a joke on request ("I'm not a lot of laughs, you know?") -- but it's neat nonetheless to see him take a variety of questions from fans, sans the usual network TV quick-cut editing that leaves nothing but the best sound bites. Sometimes mediocre sound bites from interesting people are worth watching too.

--David Sarno