How to Interview Celebrities.…

Worried about your interview with the big star? Learn these simple tips from a man who has met them all and nothing can go wrong

Interviewing the famous has its pitfalls – and its etiquette. Keep off their private life – they can get very touchy – and never do something that shows them up. I made a hideous mistake with Simon Callow, who opted for tea at The Savoy as the place to chat about a book he had written on Charles Laughton. Why he had opted for tea there I do not know because he proceeded to order grapes and hot water, to which the tea room said they could only provide the hot water. We chatted happily enough about the book until I told him he had missed out one of Laughton’s Hollywood movies – The Blue Veil, a 1951 Jane Wyman weepie that was a hit at the time. Things went downhill from there on.

The worst thing is when you get landed with a minder sitting in, although if you keep it harmless to start with, the chances are they will slope off and leave you to get on with it. Then ask what you think you can get away with. When it is early on in their career and they are not experienced at being interviewed, your star will be quite nervous so be nice, lull them into a sense of security. It is always interesting to see when yesterday’s breakthrough role actor turns into a star, how they change. Meg Ryan, when she first came to London, was charming and happy to chat about her movie at length in one of those semi-smart cocktail bars off Wardour Street. But Meg the star, confronted with Michael Parkinson some years later, was another matter altogether. By that time, she had decided she really did not like being interviewed. He raised the fact that she had once trained to be a journalist, a chat line which was not particularly productive, and when he noted how wary she was of journalists and asked what she would do now if she were one, she replied: “Wrap it up.”

The Hollywood golden age stars were trained in how to do it. Those casual wisecracks for which they are celebrated were all part of the script. Kirk Douglas, promoting Tough Guys, the last film he made with frequent co-star Burt Lancaster, delivered a masterclass in chat which somehow ignored that it was a truly dreadful movie in which the two old gents were way past their best. Douglas even took his shirt off in it. The copy was terrific – or so one thought. However, the interview took place on a Thursday afternoon for publication Friday morning and on Thursday evening Kirk went on the Russell Harty show to deliver the same spiel, right down to the pauses for sympathetic laughter so that my Our Man Talks To piece read like Our Man Watched the Russell Harty Show. Bear that in mind. Today they will almost certainly be on The One Show or breakfast television before anyone gets round to reading you.

The other thing is: do as you are told. Confronted with Mel Gibson – it was one of those group affairs since regional newspapers like the one I worked for do not share circulation areas – we were firmly told not to stand up while Mel was in the room. However, nature calls even superstars and later I discovered why: we would have been looking down on the great man. Mel, unlike William Wallace, is a wee man. His Braveheart was, to say the least, a triumph of mind over matter – or camera angles.

Always make sure you know who you are talking to. Confronted with Imelda Staunton and having memories of a rather good Sunday paper interview with Imogen Stubbs the day before, I got confused with their respective careers. It has to be said Ms Staunton laughed happily, said she had never been to university and all went well until I raised seeing her in a musical years back, whereupon a slight chill descended. It was clearly not part of her career she wished to recall, being now a dramatic actress in Vera Drake. Except what goes round comes round and today she is a bigger leading lady in West End musicals than she is on screen.

One of the hazards of the group interview at film festivals is that you do them with journalists from other countries who are always devoted cineastes and would regard even Sight and Sound as the equivalent of Comic Cuts. This means that you have to make sure you lead the talk. The star will prattle about whatever it is they remember about making the movie, which could be very little. They are there for the per diem, the posh hotel suite and the free food and have almost certainly forgotten pretty well everything about a movie made at least a year before and followed by others. There is also the hazard of their drug habit. When he made Chaplin, Robert Downie Jr was hard to handle – his days as a Hollywood bad boy are now over – and clearly had no idea where he was when he eventually turned up. The coffee table in his room where the interview was taking place was smeared with honey on which he had been indulging and when one of the group asked to use the loo, it was refused since that was allegedly rather messed up with white powder.

As for the currently beleaguered Johnny Depp, whose glory days were yet to come, he gave every sign of needing a good wash and that he wished to be anywhere but there when first interviewed. One Cannes year when he was at the Hotel du Cap, he and Kate Moss kept the press with interview slots waiting for 36 hours while somehow or other the hotel suite was trashed. As for the handlers landed with troublesome stars, all they want is to get them to turn out, and your job is to put up with how they are behaving because that is the only way you will get anything. Flattery helps, but never let the Middle European cineastes set the agenda or you will end up with next to no copy.

Keeping it confidential about Spacey

Sometimes awful things happen. I got Rod Steiger all to myself once at Cannes, but I was in a queue and had been seated two or three tables away from him in a smart beach bar. I could hear every word of the two previous interviews, which meant by the time I got to him it was hard to think of anything that had not been asked – and he was in the same condition when it came to answers. It was a state of affairs not helped by the arrival of the Mrs Steiger of the day, who was desperate to go and have lunch.

On one occasion, confronted with Kevin Spacey, who was being charming, I changed the subject just as the man next to me was about to ask the million dollar question of the day. It would probably have ended the chat, but you never know. This was well before the Old Vic era when he became the toast of the town in which he is now toast. Anyway, my colleague had opened his mouth to ask: “Are you gay?” Just what might have happened one dreads to think but the chances are we would have rapidly left – or he would.

Remember, almost all of the stars will not know who you are the minute it is over unless you are female and gorgeous, when they just might make a play. I had one predatory female colleague from whose advances the PR guardians regularly had to protect their property. But mostly the eyes go dead almost before they have left the room, and should you bump into them in the corridor half an hour later, they will not see you. Do not be offended. Know your place in the pecking order. You have not made a new friend, no matter how well the interview went.

To be fair, there are a few, like Brad Pitt, who remember you from last time at the same festival. George Clooney is another who uses the line about how nice to see you again. He may remember the face as he does have political nous, but equally the people who do these interviews tend to be the same people, so at least one in the group will have met him before. If necessary, always drop your name into the conversation so that avoids the interviewee’s ignorance being exposed and leaves them looking good.

Do not make a joke. Interviewing Anthony Perkins once, somebody asked him who his favourite leading lady was. He paused and I interrupted with: “Yourself?” It was not the right thing to say to the sexually ambivalent Mr Perkins, whose “if looks could kill” expression only lifted a bit when I added “in Psycho?”.

I belong to the dead days of shorthand but it is a great interview help. When the star gets boring, you just stop taking notes, whereupon they get worried and start to talk. The constantly running tape recorder has a major drawback – you are, in effect, stealing their voice. Shorthand is not seen as doing that, although the note is just as good a record of what was said as the tape. Sometimes. Of course, they just misbehave for the sake of it. Russell Crowe, always a tricky subject, in his romper stomper breakthrough days stormed out after one journalist asked something he did not want to reply to.

Later, for another film, he sat down, announced there was going to be one question and he would tell us what it was going to be, followed by another when he asked the assembled hacks five questions, one of which was what was the capital of Brazil? When told what it was, he left. There is nothing you can do about it and the publicist will shrug if complained to – at least they got him to turn out, which is what they are most concerned about. Always remember, stars’ careers have their ups and downs.

And do not think sharing a surname is any help. Kurt Russell proved totally uninterested in the film he had to promote or our shared surname, and Willy Russell failed to see anything in being interviewed by someone of the same name, although it was the excuse for the umpteenth time he must have had to talk about Blood Brothers. The best moment about sharing the same surname occurred when he was not there. Introduced as Willie Russell by a fellow critic to the late Dan Crawford, who ran the King’s Head theatre, my jaw dropped when he said how much he admired my writing. Journalists do not believe people read what they write. Then the penny dropped. Wrong Willie. There was nothing to do but smile modestly and move on – rapidly.

The other thing is that most of these interviews take place in really smart places, like the Dorchester, the Savoy, Soho House or the Groucho Club, so remember the first rule of journalism and turn up well enough dressed to go anywhere. Provided you are neat, smart hotel lobbies are your oyster, somewhere to read the paper, shelter from the rain and use the facilities.

Not that your interviewee will worry about dress. Actors rarely look smart, let alone tidy, when off the red carpet. On the occasions they do dress up, it is perhaps better not to make too much of it. I realise it was a mistake to say to Colin Firth, who had appeared in designer Tom Ford’s movie A Single Man – in which he was outstandingly well-dressed – “Nice suit. Did they give you the clothes?”