Interviews, conversations and David Letterman
(Photo from Netflix) Years ago I did a phone interview with an actress who had a new series, and it was a rapid chat, her answers coming as quickly as I could ask a question. At the end I told her she'd been fast. "Do you know how many of these I've done today?" Our talk, it was clear, was not a conversation; it was a transaction, her getting publicity, me getting enough for a story my readers might like. I did a lot of transactional interviews during my career, more than I like to remember now. More often than not an interview had a specific purpose, and a fixed amount of time, and did not go much beyond either. Not always, especially when a remark took us down a different road. (I've told students more than once that, as thoroughly prepared as you are for an interview, you also have to listen to the person you're interviewing -- don't be too bound to the questions you've prepared.) Molly Shannon and I once began comparing some personal notes wh...