Most published film interviews contain no information. This is not because the subjects are uninteresting; it is because of how the interviews are conducted. Understanding the format explains what you are reading.
The junket is a production line
Around a release, actors typically sit for consecutive short interviews — sometimes twenty or more in a day, often fifteen minutes each, in a room arranged by the film’s publicists. The subject has answered every predictable question a dozen times before you arrive.
Under those conditions, generic questions receive rehearsed answers. “What drew you to this role?” has a prepared response, and it is not a lie, but it is not thinking either.
What produces a real answer
Specificity. A question about a particular scene, a particular choice, a visible decision in the finished film — these cannot be answered from a script, because the interviewer has demonstrated they actually watched it. The change in the subject’s engagement is usually immediate and obvious in the transcript.
Questions about craft also work better than questions about feeling. Performers are frequently articulate about how they built something and vague about what it meant to them, and interviewers who push on the latter get platitudes while the interesting material sits unasked.
What access costs
Interview access is granted by publicists, and publicists remember. An outlet that publishes an unflattering piece may find the next round of access harder to secure. This is the central structural pressure in entertainment journalism, and it is rarely disclosed.
It produces a predictable pattern: coverage becomes softer as an outlet’s access improves. Readers experience this as an outlet gradually becoming less interesting without an obvious cause.
How to read one
Look for whether the interviewer asked a follow-up. A transcript of ten unrelated questions is a form being filled in. A transcript where question four responds to the answer to question three is a conversation, and conversations produce information.
Also look for what the piece admits it could not get. An interview that notes a question was declined is more trustworthy than one that presents seamless cooperation.
Our approach
We state the conditions — junket, one-to-one, phone, duration — at the top of every interview, so you can weigh it accordingly.
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