Celebrities on Celebrities: The New Interview Trend?
Celebrity interviews have long been a mainstay of entertainment journalism, dating all the way back to film magazines of the 1910s. Periodicals, including Motion Picture Magazine and Photoplay, combined advice for breaking into show business with profiles of its already-ascendant stars. They had a symbiotic relationship with the major film studios, who produced the very names that would grace their glossy covers. This win-win arrangement is one that still stands today: celebrity interviews give us a window into the inner lives of our favorite A-listers, while allowing the latter an avenue to promote their latest projects and build a bigger audience. At worst, celebrity interviews can be shallow, glorified fluff pieces that blindingly extol the virtues of the subject. At best, however, they can be crowning achievements in an oft-underestimated field of journalism; intimate, vivid portraits that make us feel connected to some of our biggest icons.
Traditionally, celebrity profiles have been written by professional writers, both to maintain a healthy distance and to ensure a measurable degree of literary merit. That’s no longer a hard-and-fast-rule. The past six months alone have seen a sharp uptick in the number of celebrity interviews conducted by another celebrity. Taylor Swift on Pattie Boyd. Emma Stone on Jennifer Lawrence. Oprah on Michelle Obama. The type of relationship varies (be it friend, collaborator, or protégée) but the end result is almost always transcribed in a straight Q&A format, preserving both parties’ words verbatim—in contrast to the narrative-style write-ups of yesteryear.
In August, Vanity Fair picked up on the phenomenon, noting that it was “a good sell to celebrities who want more control of their image.” Shortly after, i-D published a think piece declaring this “the era of celebrities interviewing celebrities,” while voicing skepticism that these interactions could produce truly meaningful content. Ironically, i-D then tasked Harry Styles with interviewing Timothée Chalamet for its Winter 2018 issue. Perhaps even vocal critics of the trend have succumbed to its obvious advantages: witty banter, natural rapport, and a better sense of the interviewee’s own voice. They can produce unique points of view while indulging our most basic curiosities. Interview magazine, founded by the original pop savant, Andy Warhol, makes heavy use of pairings between cultural luminaries, with the understanding that readers want to hear what influential people have to say, in their own words. While they’re a long shot from George Saunders and Zadie Smith, who hasn’t wanted to be a fly on the wall for a conversation between the Jenner sisters?
But the premise of greater authenticity may be misleading. Famous people are famously loath to divulge personal details or controversial opinions, lest they have to walk back an earlier statement with a public apology. Double the star power also means double the potential for a PR disaster. And if the interviewer happens to be a contemporary in the same field of work, why would they jeopardize a future relationship with touchy questions? As such, celebrity-on-celebrity interviews are rarely as revealing as we might expect them to be. There are notable exceptions, of course: after years of holding her tongue as former First Lady, Michelle Obama was able to open up to Oprah in the December issue of Elle, revealing her marriage counseling with Barack and the insidious damage of Donald Trump’s birther conspiracy.
Whether the celebrity-on-celebrity interview is a passing fad or a permanent fixture remains yet to be seen, but one thing is for sure: print journalism is in serious need of a revamp. The numbers don’t lie: readership is plummeting, yet consumers aren’t moving online as projected. Unlike the generation before them, millennials and Gen Z are no longer accustomed to paying for their news—and why should they, with the dissolution of old media institutions, and access to social media at their fingertips? Glamour magazine, once one of the most widely read fashion titles in the country, and a purveyor of celebrity interviews with a “female empowerment” lean, has ceased its monthly print output. Even Mark Thompson, CEO of the robust New York Times, estimates that the paper has about “10 years left” left in print.
The celebrity-on-celebrity interview may just be the latest in a series of concerted efforts to win back readers. From a strictly business standpoint, celebrity-on-celebrity interviews offer an insider’s take that can’t be gleaned anywhere else, making them especially enticing to diehard fans, just like a piece of exclusive memorabilia (see: Chalamet and Styles, whose issue of i-D is already sold out online). In a similar vein, media juggernauts like Condé Nast have been making a noticeable transition to video, with examples being Vogue’s popular 73 Questions and Wired’s Autocomplete Interview. One of the most buzzed-about series on YouTube is Hot Ones, which invites celebrities to answer questions while chowing down on a lineup of increasingly spicy chicken wings. It’s an unlikely, slightly zany proposition—but with millions of views per video, it’s safe to say Hot Ones has hit the attention economy jackpot. Others in the media industry, including journalists, will have to be equally creative to reshape the landscape in their favor.
As Kenzie Bryant writes, “If we can’t all be Beyoncé ‘in her own words,’ we can at least mix up the format”.
