Over the years I have interviewed a wide range of
celebrities. One thing I was taught very early on was to remember that they
need you just as much as you need them. The Faustian pact is that exposure for
their performance is what fills your column inches. That said, the relationship
between journalist and performer is a delicate one which needs, on your part,
careful handling. In most cases you have to pander to their fragile ego and
allow them to delude themselves that they are doing you a huge favour by even
deigning to talk to you.
That said, the vast majority of celebrities are well
aware of the game we are all playing and readily buy into it so long as you
play the game as well.
Dance diva Carol Leeming was probably the first
celebrity I interviewed. I had done a load of research, including distilling
the promotional material her record company supplied me with, and she told me
that this was very impressive as most interviewers never bothered to read what
they were given and, arrogantly, assumed they could wing an interview. I took
that as a lesson learned.
My next interview, Margarita Pracatan (Google her!),
showed how important research was and how it can all go wrong. I was invited to
a nightclub where she was performing and introduced to her backstage. The idea
was that we had set up a TV camera in a VIP suite and she was going to give me
15 minutes before she went onstage to perform. It all started so well, I had a
list of questions and points for discussion until I hit a couple of errors.
Throwing caution to the wind I just threw my notes up in the air, laughed it
off and managed to get through the rest of the interview. I vowed never again
to trust only one source when researching a guest.
Sometimes, no matter how well prepared you are, fate
will throw a spanner in the works. I was asked to interview the two leads in
a touring production of 42nd
Street. I arrived well ahead of schedule with my camera crew and we set up in
the side room we had been allocated in the venue. Very soon James Smilie,
erstwhile Prison Governor in Prisoner Cell Block H, appeared and we chatted
amiably while we waited for his co-star, Gemma Craven, to arrive at the venue.
A harried stage crew member popped his head round the door to tell us that Ms
Craven was still 20 minutes away. Mr Smilie, bless him, started to do his
calisthenic warm-up on the floor while we waited. Ms Craven eventually dashed
in, all apologies for getting caught in traffic, and gave a magnificent
interview. There had been little I could do in the circumstances other than
wait and hope so I just sat back and chatted with the crew and James.
Other pre-arranged interviews went very well. I
remember getting to spend a very pleasant hour or so with Jeffrey Holland to
promote his one man show about Stan Laurel. A list of questions and my mobile
phone recording the chat and we could have easily whiled away an entire
afternoon. This was a man who was so experienced in playing the publicity game
that, afterwards, I realised he had steered the chat and had revealed no more
than he was happy to.
My encounter with the lovely Dannii Minogue was a
prime example of how the management entourage surrounding artistes often colour
our view of them. I had already set up an afternoon of filming at a Halls of
Residence at my local university when I was told that Ms Minogue would be
performing for the students that afternoon. We spent a good week trying to
contact her management and publicity people to get permission to interview her
but to no avail. They wouldn’t even return our calls. So, come the day, we set
up the TV equipment on a landing outside her dressing room and waited for her
to arrive. Soon we got word that she had jut pulled into the car park so I sent
the director down to say that we were set up and could she spare us 10 minutes
for an interview. He stressed that if she said no then we would pack up and
leave. Minutes later he bounded up the stairs like a toddler on Haribo saying
she was happy to be interviewed. Sometimes it helps if you can get to the celebrity
direct.
A week later we were filming interviews at a music festival in London and she
was appearing. When she saw us she ran over and we got a second interview.
For all the interviews that go smoothly or turn out
well despite the circumstances there are the ones destined never to turn out
right. This is what happened when we tried to interview Ms Honor Blackman. Ms
Blackman was appearing at a local theatre in her one woman show and so we
approached her publicity agent and asked if we could travel down to London,
interview her and screen it a couple of days before she was due to appear
locally. We were overjoyed when he said she would be happy to be interviewed.
We duly travelled down to London from Leicester with a film crew and set up in
the theatre bar where she was due to perform that night. We were so excited at
getting an interview with such an iconic star that we failed to check the
outside of the theatre for her promotional material. We waited and waited and
eventually rang the publicity agent to find out where she was. He got back to
us to say her phone was off but she must be on her way. To cut a long story
short it turned out we were at the wrong theatre, similarly named but the wrong
theatre. Very apologetic the agent said it was now too late as she had to
prepare for the show that night. I called him the following day to apologise
once more and asked whether we could do the interview when she was in Leicester
for her show the next week. Thankfully she agreed so we turned up at the
theatre the next week and did the interview. She was gracious and funny and
very accommodating. I saw her show that night and was astounded at her
professionalism and stamina for her age (74 at the time, I think). Imagine my
mortification the following day when the director rang me and told me that
somehow there was no sound on the tape.
Doing interviews outdoors, and especially at any kind
of festival, is fraught with distractions and technical difficulties. I have
done a couple of al fresco gatherings and, touch wood, they have come out OK if
you factor in having to raise your voice against the background noise. They are
very useful because, if you can manage to get backstage and into the VIP area,
it is easy to get chatting to all sorts of people without battling your way
through management reps.
Radio interviews are a lot easier than TV if only
because you don’t have to look too presentable. The other thing is that you
can have a list of questions and background notes right in front of you and
running out of questions is every interviewer’s nightmare.
Telephone interviews are also a lot easier for the
same reasons. When I was required to fill a quota of column inches every week I
found that cultivating a relationship with book publishers got me telephone
access to all sorts of authors; some are celebrities and some just writers but all
fodder for journalists.
When I wrote for lifestyle magazines it was also necessary to schmooze up to
venue owners to provide you with copy. Once again that symbiotic relationship
worked both ways and once you had regular contact with a named person the
columns virtually wrote themselves.
Back in the day when I was on the other end of the pen and trying to get
exposure for various people and places in the press I learned very quickly that
if you can provide a journalist with ready written copy then they will usually
use it.
As a journalist I was always grateful for promotional material that didn’t need
rewriting, especially when I was up against a deadline.
