Apoptosis is a highly regulated multistep process for programmed cellular destruction. It is centered on the activation of a group of intracellular cysteine proteases known as caspases. The baculoviral p35 protein effectively blocks apoptosis through its broad spectrum caspase inhibition. It harbors a caspase recognition sequence within a highly protruding reactive site loop (RSL), which gets cleaved by a target caspase before the formation of a tight complex. The crystal structure of the post-cleavage complex between p35 and caspase-8 shows that p35 forms a thioester bond with the active site cysteine of the caspase. The covalent bond is prevented from hydrolysis by the N terminus of p35, which repositions into the active site of the caspase to eliminate solvent accessibility of the catalytic residues. Here, we report mutational analyses of the pre-cleavage and post-cleavage p35/caspase interactions using surface plasmon resonance biosensor measurements, pull-down assays and kinetic inhibition experiments. The experiments identify important structural elements for caspase inhibition by p35, including the strict requirement for a Cys at the N terminus of p35 and the rigidity of the RSL. A bowstring kinetic model for p35 function is derived in which the tension generated in the bowstring system during the pre-cleavage interaction is crucial for the fast post-cleavage conformational changes required for inhibition.