At first I found junkets disturbing because I thought the reporters were patronizing me. I’ve been sensitive to people talking down to me my whole life because I look young. When someone spoke to me like I was twelve, I would think, This motherfucker thinks I’m some idiotic little actress and they have to talk to me like a Miss USA contestant. I’d get all huffy about it. At my first Golden Globes I overheard an interview happening next to me and realized, Dear god, they’re talking to Dame Helen Mirren in that same sugary, condescending tone. So now it’s annoying, but I don’t take it personally.
Some on-camera journalists are so cheesy it’s jarring. I had never noticed it when I heard their voices on TV: “Coming up! We’re gonna chat with the owner of YouTube’s newest furry sensation: Reginald the mongoose!” I get why they use the voice: it feels right on TV, it keeps the audience engaged, and they are doing the right thing to use it! But in person, it’s shocking how unnatural their demeanor is. Every time I talk to one of these journalists—every single time—I picture them having sex. I don’t mean to, it just happens! I can’t stop myself! What is it like?! Do they have that same crazy energy? Are they like, “I mean, wow, Janet, this lovemaking is just sensational!” It’s all I’m thinking about. (Unless I do an interview and someone asks me about this part of the book, in which case, I’m obviously just joking.) (I’m not just joking.)
And it can’t be easy for the journalists. It’s not their fault the studio scheduled them as interview sixty-one out of seventy. Just like it’s not my fault that by interview sixty-one I’m playing a game with myself where I try to sneak the word “kerfuffle” into every answer as a mental exercise to stave off the creeping madness.
It’s the day of a million questions, yet somehow it’s the same questions over and over. It’s like babysitting a toddler (but at least you can shake a toddler). Fatigue and repetition mess with you. That’s why they make great “enhanced interrogation” techniques. In fact, when trying to extract confessions from criminal masterminds, I’d recommend putting them in hair extensions, heels, and individual false eyelashes. They’ll tell you EVERYTHING.
Print
Print is a rude awakening. Seeing your conversational speech written down forces you to acknowledge how many lexical gaps you fill with phrases like “stuff,” “thingy,” “whatever,” and “urggsssghhh, ya know?”
In every print interview I do, I resolve to speak as though I were writing. It lasts four minutes, tops. Without fail I feel like a pretentious douche who speaks slower than Alan Rickman, and I revert to fast-paced colloquialisms because I’d rather save face in front of this one reporter than the rest of the world. I end up reading what I said, thinking, Am I THAT bad at communication? I’m going to be a nightmare in my inevitable marriage counseling.
Print interviews are also a mindfuck because this person is going to write up not only what you say, but how you seem as you say it, and how you seem as you pause, and how you seem as you walk in. You become so self-conscious about every mannerism, so aware of trying not to act self-aware, it can feel like you are trying to disprove a negative. Jon Ronson’s book The Psychopath Test says that if you are accused of being a psychopath, it’s incredibly difficult to prove that you aren’t one. Psychopaths are masters of mimicking healthy human behavior, so how does a real, healthy human prove that they aren’t faking it?
But here’s the thing: I am faking it. It’s an interview; the very construct is artificial. It’s a manufactured conversation. If anything, I make the mistake of buying into it more than a decent journalist ever would. Sometimes I think the writer and I are becoming friends, because they are such a good listener. (I know, guys, I’m not very bright.)
So, aren’t we both faking? And I get it, journalists; you aren’t dying to talk to every ego-bloated actor who rolls through town, you do it because it’s part of your job. You ACT thrilled about it because of the social contract, and so do I! But I’m not thrilled. We just met! I’d have to be insane to be “thrilled” to talk about myself with a perfect stranger knowing that they plan to make every word of it available to every other human on the planet.
There are some journalists I’ve known for a few years now and I always like talking to them. There are some who I meet and get along with because they are good at their job, and the fact that I feel comfortable immediately is solely a testament to them. Sometimes the ones who seem really unhappy to be there write very kind things, and the ones who seem really friendly write very passive-aggressive things. I once developed a crush on a journalist after spending less than twenty minutes with him. It wasn’t a physical thing; he was just good at his job, so I felt like we were having a good time.
Afterward I admonished myself for thinking I had a “connection” with someone who is quite literally paid to be interested in me. He described me in his piece as though I was a robot capable of turning my “press face” on and off. The interview psychopath! This was one of the rare times I’d been completely caught up in the conversation—embarrassingly so—yet I’d been accused of being a big fat faker. What are you gonna do? I guess I should be grateful he didn’t say, “Fellow journalists: beware. This dummy clearly wanted to bone me.”