Leisure reporters are likely to rapidly be taught loads of harsh truths once they begin interviewing celebrities for a dwelling. As an illustration, when a glamorous film star says, “That’s an awesome query,” it’s usually meant much less as a praise on the reporter’s inquisitive thoughts than as a technique to vamp for time whereas pondering of a tactful evasion.
The harshest reality of all, although, is perhaps the obvious: {that a} reporter’s huge, thrilling interview with a telegenic zillionaire is definitely only a pesky a part of that individual’s day—one they is perhaps quietly gritting their enamel to get by means of.
An leisure reporter shall be made keenly conscious of that actuality in some interviews greater than others, however being knowledgeable means attempting to not take it personally. That’s the job.
Lately, interviewer Kjersti Flaa made waves by recirculating old footage on TikTok of an uncomfortable interview with Anne Hathaway. In it, the star is selling her Oscar-winning flip in 2012’s Les Misérables with brief, clipped solutions and an unamused expression. Although it’s troublesome to observe, the video has racked up 10.4 million views in 4 days. It provoked a robust sufficient destructive response that Hathaway has since despatched a personal apology to Flaa.
However the backlash appears to have this case backward. Finally, it’s extra unprofessional for a reporter to behave the best way Flaa does within the video—to not point out try to disgrace the star for it years later—than it was for Hathaway to present an ungenerous interview within the first place.
The clip begins with Flaa asking Hathaway if she will be able to sing her questions and additional asking if the star wouldn’t thoughts singing her solutions again. Hathaway’s response, unsurprisingly, is: “Effectively, I received’t be doing that however you’re greater than welcome to sing.”
The remainder of the 30-second clip exhibits the actress answering questions on life in Nineteenth-century France and whether or not she remembers her first crush—each with curt noes. Whether or not Hathaway answered the a number of minutes’ value of different questions extra thoughtfully stays unclear for now.
What is totally unambiguous, nevertheless, is that it is a horrible approach for any interviewer to begin an interview.
Les Miz is perhaps a musical, however did that give Flaa the correct to ask Hathaway to sing for her supper? At greatest, it’s a corny request; at worst, it’s dehumanizing, lowering the actor to a dancing monkey who performs on cue. It could be like asking a comic to conduct an interview completely in improvised knock-knock jokes. That the interview went lower than easily after such a gap gambit shouldn’t be a shock, a lot much less a mini-scandal.
Flaa herself appears to know as a lot. In a far longer clip on her YouTube channel—all through which she dons a child blue shirt that reads, “Being well mannered is simple”—the interviewer particulars extensively how she landed on the singing gambit. If this present want to justify that a part of the interview didn’t recommend she now thinks it was a foul thought, she goes a step additional later. “I’ve discovered all through the years,” she finally says, “to not attempt to be humorous or do a stunt throughout interviews, as a result of more often than not, it simply seems actually awkward.”
You already know, it’s nearly as if she has completely identified the place the interview went unsuitable.
Press junkets: pace courting for Hollywood
Hathaway’s response might have been sharper than Flaa anticipated on the time, however with far and a few perspective, it also needs to be comprehensible. It definitely shouldn’t be circulated 12 years later with an unflattering edit for instance of traumatizing rudeness.
Particularly not with the added context that the interview occurred throughout a junket.
For anybody who doesn’t know what a junket is, it’s when the expertise from an upcoming movie or TV present commandeers a bunch of resort suites in New York or Los Angeles for a exactly scheduled gauntlet of interviews. A few of these are filmed; others are usually not. Some function one-on-ones with every of the leads or the filmmakers; others put the forged in pairs or different configurations.
The interviews run wherever from 7 to half-hour, usually back-to-back, with not even sufficient time in between to examine one’s e mail. It looks like type of a grind. And though the celebrities are terribly well-compensated for it, a grind continues to be a grind.
Any reporter who does sufficient junkets is sure to finally both catch a star at their breaking level for the day, or wreck an interview with a dumb query. (As a seasoned veteran of the junket circuit, I’ve personally skilled each outcomes a number of instances.) If it’s a part of a well-documented sample of impolite habits, it would certainly imply that the superstar is only a junket-jerk. In most situations, although, it’s extra possible that this well-known individual was having a pure and human response to the deeply unnatural, inhuman expertise of being grilled for hours on finish by a cavalcade of strangers, a few of whom wish to get weirdly private.
So long as these icy interviews aren’t outright antagonistic, they demand grace—not an eventual shaming marketing campaign.
Uncomfortable moments as engagement bait
Maybe the rationale the Hathaway clip received a lot traction is as a result of Flaa has been carving out a reputation for herself recently within the influencer house, spilling superstar tea to her many followers. She went viral again in August for dredging up a 2016 interview with Blake Energetic and Parker Posey that, Flaa claims, made her wish to give up her job.
The video begins with the interviewer congratulating a not-visibly-pregnant Energetic on her “little bump,” to which a smiling Energetic blithely replies, “Congrats on your little bump!” (Flaa will not be pregnant within the video; Energetic’s remark seems to be a taste-of-your-own-medicine type of factor, moderately than a touch upon Flaa’s look.) The remainder of the interview goes on in just about the identical tone, and ends with Posey rolling her eyes at what simply occurred.
Maybe as a substitute of constructing her wish to give up her job, this expertise ought to have made Flaa wish to rethink her method to kicking off interviews. Apparently, nevertheless, she has as a substitute taken to creating movies like this TikTok, during which she declares of Energetic: “It’s not okay to behave like that, and I believe it must be known as out.”
It’s troublesome to parse what kind of social change Flaa hopes to perform by calling out such habits. Forcing celebrities within the 2010s to keep away from reacting when an interviewer rubs them the unsuitable approach? If something, this cynical mining of uncomfortable moments solely diminishes the affect of extra reliable callouts round microagressions.
Nonetheless, making hay out of regrettable superstar habits definitely appears to be figuring out for Flaa. Whereas Energetic rode out the ensuing social media storm from the interviewer’s movies, Hathaway not solely apologized to Flaa for the “terrible” interview but in addition offered to make it up to her whereas selling one in all her upcoming initiatives in 2025.
“I’m actually trying ahead to that, Anne,” Flaa stated in a video about receiving the apology.
Hathaway nearly definitely received’t be trying ahead to it, however she’ll possible present up anyway, along with her well-known smile plastered on her face and gracious solutions this time. Being well mannered is simple, in any case. And so is being skilled. Flaa ought to attempt it someday.