Ripped from the Headlines

Talking with De Niro, and what you leave at the door

And then, sometimes, the interviews you expect to be the toughest are -- if not, say, the easiest -- at least go more easily than you expect.

Interviewing someone is exciting, but I recognize it's a challenge for the person being interviewed, unless they're on autopilot. The one time I was interviewed was fairly stressful, because I feel like I know how the guts of it all works, and I could hear myself not being brilliant or snappy even if I was being informative. Interviewing is such an in-the-moment present experience that it takes a mind more nimble than mine to deftly interweave an agenda, information and snappy presentation -- that has to be something you're trained in one way or the other.

Robert De Niro is considered the ne plus ultra of the Tough Interview, if he wants to be. It isn't that he's an iconic Hollywood actor, it's that he's not known for putting interviewers at ease. One thing I learned in that terrific how-to interview book I referenced yesterday is that if you encounter an interview subject who gives a lot of push back that it's okay to address that very topic, at least briefly. I felt prepared, but a little edgy, just in case my first question set us on a course downhill.

He was late, the prerogative of the famous and powerful -- and busy. Not to say it was a power play, but after a certain number of years in whatever business you are at the top of, you know people will wait for you. When he did arrive the photographer got first dibs and set him up for about a half hour of pictures. He wasn't in makeup or fancy clothes, just blue jeans and a blue polo with a jacket over it. At one point he seemed to notice a stain on the shirt and the photographer insisted it wouldn't show up. So this is not pretense, this is not Hollywood glamour. This is a guy, and he's workin' here. Once in a while when she asked him to smile a bit, he'd do this funny little "cheeeeese" sound, and you'd get a thin smile. I can only imagine how many times he's sat for photos -- or interviews -- at this point. I wonder how much of it just rolls off, forgotten, right after it happens.

So I was on tenterhooks for a while as I watched the photos being taken, feeling a little better about making it work, but just wanting to get it started. When we finally moved up to his office to sit down to chat, though, it all went quite well. It's always great to be in someone's office, you get a real feel for the person. In his case, we're talking 20 foot ceilings, unfinished brick and walls covered on almost every inch with framed pictures and memorabilia.

"Is that a real Matisse?" I asked him, glancing up at a Blue Nude on the wall, about 15 feet off the ground. "I think so," he told me.

So we sat and talked and I drank some tea and he was ... I'm not going to say effusive but definitely talked and gave thoughtful, reasoned answers. Some things were clearly easier to speak about than others, but I even felt comfortable to ask him about things I hadn't seen in a hundred places before (though surely I'm not the first to ask about his age, or about revisiting the gangster motif again). When we were done he led me to the office door, and on the way I paused; the side of a bookcase caught my attention. Or rather, the axe nailed to the side of the bookcase caught my attention.

"It's from a movie I made," he said.

"Which one?" I asked, thinking of all the times he's played menacing bad guys, wondering if I could see spattered (fake) blood on it.

"Backdraft." 

You know, the firefighter movie. And that's why expectations and assumptions are best left at the door.

On Stone Roses and other teachers: Yeah, I'm talkin' to you

Having done this journalism thing since high school -- and now for over 25 years beyond -- it's probably safe to say I've done thousands of interviews. In the recent vast cleaning out prior to a move I finally dumped most of the old ones, recorded on 90 and 120-minute cassette tapes, into the bin, a little sad to lose all of that information, yet knowing I would never, never sit down and listen to it again. But the vast quantity of tapes, crammed with 20 and 30 minute chats, largely over the phone, is a life's work.

The future library archive of my materials will just have to do without. Such a loss! (I kid, of course.)

Interviewing was something I taught myself. I love my alma mater, Boston University, but they never taught me how to interview -- a skill I feel any good journalist should master, whether in school or without. Early on I would start out with a huge number of questions despite the amount of time we were given -- and if I liked my subject's work a lot, I'd get into the seriously nitty-gritty stuff -- until one musician ventured mid-question "when are we going to get to the new album?" and, abashed, I immediately went to the relevant stuff. That was a lesson: Be relevant, and know how much time you've got to ask what you need.

I got a very difficult interview as my very first -- Richard Cohen of the Washington Post, when I was in 8th grade. It was part of a school assignment (interview someone in the profession you're interested in) and while he agreed to do it, he then either unconsciously or by design decided to teach me what it's like to interview a jerk: Every question I asked got a "yes" or "no" answer, and no elaboration. Perhaps that was his way of saying -- without ever saying, by the way -- that one had to follow up with "how" and "why" questions rather than just "yes" and "no" questions, but in retrospect, I tend to feel it was just kind of a dick move to pull on an 8th grader.

Still, it wasn't until I was into college that I hit any actual important, difficult interviews -- that is, interviews where I had an assignment and I had to get answers, one way or the other. The Stone Roses (a band out of Manchester, UK) sat down with me, en masse, in London when I was probably about 19 and then refused to be anything but irritating lads about the whole discussion. I was bolstered by having one more interviewer with me that day, a man I'd just met that day but who would become a lifelong friend, and both of us kept doing double-takes. As in, why bother wasting your time and ours? But that was their image, and they lived up to it.

And in retrospect, they were good teachers: After speaking, or not speaking, with them I started trying to really learn how to counter the jerk interview. But finding books on how to interview tended to lead me to job-search how-tos; that wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to know how to conduct interviews, not be the subject of one for a position, and those were scarce. And in those pre-Internet days, you had to rely on whatever you would find in books. (Today, I reflect I might have tried to get an assignment for an appropriate magazine to pay for my own research, but not then.) I did come across a terrific one, which is unfortunately packed away (the move, the move) and I can't cite here, but it gave me the courage to do interviews properly, providing some of the scripts I needed to counter people who Just Wouldn't Answer The Questions. I'll get into that in another post somewhere, as I'm running out of time to write this morning. But having that confidence to turn the interview into a hybrid conversation ... that made all the difference in what became my freelance, full-time writing career.

All of this to preface that I'm interviewing Robert De Niro today. Wish me luck.

Awards Season adrenaline rush: Thank you, Joan Cusack

One of the reasons I got into journalism originally was the newsroom rush. You've seen it -- on just about every Hollywoodization of how a TV news or newspaper room works; the hollering, the deadlines, the last-minute frenetic typing or calling of sources, the figuring things out in the moment, and making things happen that suddenly ... people are reading! Digesting! And you did that!

In my career that doesn't happen a whole lot after all. I never got into hard news and entertainment journalism doesn't have but so much breaking news to it (unless you're at TMZ where everything is breaking news). But last night was a bit of that all over again: I was asked by my employers at TODAY.com to help cover the Golden Globes, which meant 5 hours of pre-red carpet coverage, red carpet coverage, and then coverage of the event.

Now, I'm not saying this was exactly "Broadcast News" valuting over mothers helping children with their coats Joan Cusack kind of moves. But it was very present, very in the moment, very much aware of at least two things at once. While the TODAY gang were doing their goofy interviews on the carpet you had to be writing up what was going on, keeping up with what was going on, and listening out for any useful tidbits. When the show started it only got more intense: Fortunately, all I had to do was pay attention to hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who weren't quite as involved as you might have expected -- Oscar hosts seem to do a lot more on a show.

But things were going at a nice clip; in addition to the host antics I also had to write up some sidebars of trends and such -- stars have the flu! Claire Danes has four wins! -- and then Tommy Lee Jones started to trend as a grumpy cat on Twitter, so I helped organize something on that. And then Jodie Foster came out on stage for her lifetime achievement award. She started out kind of rambly, nervous, then launched into what clearly was going to be her "yep, I'm gay" moment ... and it kind of, sort of, mostly came. But at one point I was gesturing at the TV set with excitement going, "Do it! Do it! Come on!" knowing this would be huge, knowing this would be the rest of my night.

And it was, more or less -- everything else dropped once she made her sort-of announcement, which also included a sort-of retirement comment -- and I was dropped into the moving river, where you have to get the words (stupid DVR giving me rewind headaches; audio cutout makes a key phrase impossible to know) however you can (check out closed-captioning to get actual words spoken during drop out) and put them together in a coherent fashion ... now. Five minutes ago. I got it done, it went up, it was nearly 11.

Afterward -- having spent the entire evening being a little overheated -- I remember turning to M and saying, "I don't even feel like I saw the awards." And in a way, I didn't. It was like a sugar rush -- it goes in you, it gets you hyper, and it's out of you before you even had a chance to enjoy it. The Golden Globes have never been a big watching deal for me, but the Oscars have been -- and I'm signed up to do the exact same thing again this year for those prizes. Sadly, it sounds like I'll be both immersed in, and completely missing them.

I wouldn't want to do this every day, particularly since I have to get up to be back on the TODAY clock for 7am. But it was kind of thrilling, after all. And it wasn't until this morning that I remembered it's one of the reasons I do this in the first place.

Truth and consequences in flying drunk, or: Fly me, Denzel Washington

I enjoyed "Flight," for the most part. I wasn't sure what Hollywood had still to tell us about the dangers of alcoholism, and I was concerned it would turn into a big-ticket version of an Afterschool Special. But as most everyone recognizes, Denzel Washington is a terrific actor, deeply felt and not hard on the eyes. Watching him be a bastard almost doesn't work, but then there's "Training Day" and I remember he can do laughing menace quite well.

For those who haven't seen the film, "Flight" starts out with Denzel's airline pilot having a terrible no good very bad day in which he's high on coke and alcohol when he sits in the pilot's chair, but since he's a functioning alcoholic he's able to get away with not seeming intoxicated, not even after he dumps two mini-bottles of vodka into his OJ before strapping on his belt. Anyway, as you've probably seen in trailers, something about the plane goes haywire and he has to land it without engines, first flying literally upside down and then gliding over a church (bye-bye steeple) into a field. A few die, many are injured, but eventually everyone determines that it would have been a lot worse without his fancy maneuvering. The rest of the film is his stubbornly refusing to give up drinking and facing the questions, accusations and tribunals from survivors and examiners.

But one question -- not so much a problem -- stuck with me: Was the screenwriter trying, in some fashion, to suggest that perhaps if he hadn't been intoxicated he wouldn't have been relaxed enough to do the fancy maneuvers that allowed him to land that plane? Studies have shown that often the survivors of a plane crash are the ones who were sleeping or otherwise intoxicated; they don't clench so hard at the moment of impact and that keeps their bodies from shattering. (I believe this came up in the Jeff Bridges film "Fearless.") (Doctors, let me know if my science is mistaken.)

So yesterday, after the Oscars were announced, I was fortunate to talk to one nominee: The writer from "Flight," John Gatins, and I asked him that question. He answered at first without an answer -- the "I've gotten asked that a lot" -- but then we had an interesting discussion over the topic. It wasn't necessarily his intention to imply that, but he did recall having discussions with the director Robert Zemeckis on the set about whether that was a way to interpret the events as they played out.

I think it's safe to say that no one really wants anyone with whom we place our trust and safety and lives in intoxicated folks, and I wonder with the legalization of marijuana making its way through the courts whether we'll see a few cautionary tales on the screen about that. But in the meantime, for a writer to leave such a big question open -- a writer who ultimately gets an Oscar nomination -- is that a mistake to not have addressed it, or is it writer's prerogative?

I'm still up in the air about it (no pun intended). Anyone have thoughts? Should a writer close all of his loopholes? Or is a decisive ending just dull writing?

Behind the mask

At the risk of making life sound far more exciting than it has been lately (helping my man recover from pneumonia involved a lot of letting him sleep while I tiptoed around the apartment), I went off to another screening last night. This one for "Mildred Pierce," which has been remade into a 5-part miniseries for HBO. It's gorgeous, but probably 3 parts would have done it.

It was a fairly glam evening; HBO knows how to wine and dine folks, and lots of people who've worked with them end up showing up and it's like connect the dots -- oh, yeah! Jonathan Ames is here because of "Bored to Death!" Steve Buscemi is here because of "Boardwalk Empire!" Alas, no sign of Sean Bean -- "Game of Thrones" hasn't started yet.

There are exchanges, of course: There's lots of celebrity spotting, but you also have to endure an endless introduction to the picture while everybody down to the gaffer gets a salute and thanks from the director (a nice guy, but brevity being the soul of wit and all ....). There's a nice spread of food afterward (including three (!) kinds of desserts and fruit), but at least in my case, you have to stand for an hour on the red carpet and think of not-too-ridiculous questions to ask.

On the other hand, you also get to see the actors quite up close -- angles that the photos never achieve. So while doing your little silly interview you get to notice that one who has way too much makeup and false eyelashes and whose purple bra is peeping up from her low-cut dress. Or the one young lady who seems to have no pores at all on her face -- absolute porcelain -- but who also kept tweaking at her had-to-be-extensions. And then ... there was the one actress who had a different hairy issue to contend with. I wish I could explain it -- makeup people, got any thoughts? -- she was ... well, fuzzy. A fair amount of foundation, but both up close and from a foot or two away the fine hairs (and there were a lot of them) completely stood up on her face. Now, this is a beautiful woman. But last night, I had to wonder if she didn't have a touch of hypertrichosis.

That's what perfection is like when you get up close.

Very much a Win Win situation

Went to a special screening of the new Paul Giamatti/Amy Ryan film "Win Win" last night (and really, has there been a more ideally-suited, realistic pairing in casting history?) -- and I really can't recommend it highly enough. It's not annoyingly quirky like some indie films, and it's got a real moral center to it. The characters may do questionable things, but you want them to succeed in the end because you really, really find them likable and sympathetic.

Giamatti's a lawyer whose practice is swirling the drain, and a high-school wrestling coach whose team is doing the same. His wife (Ryan) and two young kids are great and loyal and believable, which keeps things from feeling too down. (This is a comedy, by the way -- he works alongside Jeffrey Tambor.) An elderly client needs a legal guardian, and Giamatti steps in to fill the gap -- but puts the guy in a home while collecting the guardian check each month, rather than take on what would be too much responsibility. When the guy's grandson -- a bleached-blond teen of few words who just so happens to be a wrestling prodigy -- shows up, the whole thing could come crashing down.

So well acted. So well written. So just -- delightful. And for anyone looking at the "R" rating, here's what it's for -- two uses of the F word. There's no sex, no violence (outside the wrestling ring). It absolutely should have been a PG-13 film at the very most, and any parent reading this with a young teen should feel perfectly fine with taking their kids to see it. And I hope you will. I hope you'll go. Totally worth the money -- it's the kind of movie and the kind of comedy you wish Hollywood was making, instead of drek like "Just Go With It." Well, somebody is making those films. Encourage them further!

It's probably not a good sign when, during the big mutual declaration of love scene in "Jane Eyre," the audience starts chuckling.

Went to a screening of the film last night, met some of the stars and the director (who eerily resembled Hugh Grant and insisted he'd never heard that one before). It's ... all right. Rather Gothic but somehow not very atmospheric. But the shots of the English landscape and moors are just spectacular, and you do get a sense of what isolation might have meant in that cold, windy place.

That said, men wore muttonchops and I just couldn't have survived. That's just one male facial hair expression I can't get along with. Well, that and the little tuft of hair just below the lip. What is that called?

Vroom

It's a little hard to enjoy Pixar's "Cars" after you've read Stephen King's "Trucks." The Pixar film -- which really isn't up to their usual standards -- feels like what the world turns into about 50 years after "Trucks" ends.

And while we're nitpicking a children's picture, a) where did that pile of leaves on the highway come from when there's nothing but evergreens as far as the eye can see? b) why would cars be captivated by the beauty in nature, when it would be more like them to admire the cleanliness of a well-turned out parking lot?

Just sayin'.