To take two random examples: I was expecting Andy
Murray , the British tennis number one, to be dour and truculent, in
line with his image on the court and off. Instead he turned out to be
welcoming, charming and full of honest disclosures about himself; in
particular about the complex relationship with his older brother Jamie,
whose triumphs delight him more than his own. Then there was the legendary
fell-walker and author Alfred Wainwright, whose publicists billed him as a
lovable old codger, but who didn’t want to let me into his house. When he
asked who I was and I told him, he said “That’ll be my publishers’ fault
then.” We sat in leaden silence for ages. The phone rang and he ignored it.
Then it rang again and I got up to answer it, thinking he must be deaf.
“Leave it, “ he said. “It’ll be my wife.” He only really got going once he
started talking about how England was going to the dogs: you couldn’t get
from Kendal to Keswick for 6/1d any more; town hall finance ledgers were no
longer written in copperplate, and Blackburn Rovers never won anything these
days. It reminded me how important it is, even when the conversation doesn’t
look as if it is going anywhere, to…
7. Make sure your tape recorder is running
Or mini-disc, or whatever. I should have put this one right at the start, but
clean forgot, as you do. An obvious one, sure, but more important than I can
say. Old nightmares are replaying themselves to me as I write. The time when
I should have been listening to Zoe
Wanamaker but got Patrick Moore instead because I had failed to press
the record button. The occasion when my cassette graunched in the machine
distressingly early in my chat with one of the twentieth century’s greatest
musicians. I managed to commit most of it to memory (most only),
particularly the stuff about how worried his mother was about his future -
he was celebrating his seventieth birthday at the time. A few days after the
article appeared he phoned up with some comments. It was, he said, one of
fairest, most accurate interviews he had read, and I heard myself reply:
“Thank-you, Sir Yehudi.” On these occasions it can be a good move to…
8. Pray
Or whatever your secular equivalent may be. A little luck never comes amiss,
even though the sporting cliché about getting luckier when you practice more
applies to interviewing. Still, it’s a weird, unguessable business. You
don’t know what kind of flight/breakfast/meeting/review/
call/offer/date they’ve had, nor therefore what sort of mood they’re going
to be in. Sigourney Weaver was in a pretty bad one. So was Glenda Jackson. Annie
Lennox was joy personified. Anthony Hopkins was not, and got angry when
the subject of anger came up. Mick
Jagger was bored. Humphrey
Lyttleton was not. Marianne
Faithfull was exhausted. Jerry Lee Lewis sounded almost meek from the
safe distance of a phone in Nesbit, Mississippi. Worth bearing in mind that,
where possible, you should…
9. Try to meet them on their home territory
A really tall order, I admit, since many interviews are arranged by publicists
and take place in a hotel. The Dorchester for visiting Americans, the Covent
Garden for telly people, one of the anonymously homey ones in Holland Park
for the rock stars. Half an hour and that’s your lot. One hour top whack.
You’re hurried through to keep up with the schedule, and just before the
time’s up a face appears at the door, looking at its watch. Like a public
squash court, or, as a colleague of mine said, a brothel. Which raises the
question of who are the hookers and who are the clients. Wonderful when you
can stalk the stars in their habitat, and a surprising number are happy for
you to do that. From such venerable authors as John le Carre in Hampstead,
Anthony Powell in his Somerset Chantry, Muriel Spark on her Tuscan hilltop
to Ian
McKellen in his Limehouse home or Ian
Botham in his north Yorkshire fastness. If a picture is worth a thousand
words, then I don’t know how you put a price on these people’s chosen
places, saying as much as they do about the nature of the occupants. However
big they are as stars, you should try to…
10. Treat them naturally
Don’t be sycophantic. You may be awestruck by who they are and what they have
done; I frequently am (too many to mention, but…James Baldwin, Arthur
Miller, Maggie Smith, Woody Allen, Muriel Spark, George Best, Ellen
McArthur, Tom Stoppard, Darcey
Bussell , John Le Carre, Kelly Holmes, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Ian
Botham , Stephen
Hawking ), but they don’t like it if you bow and scrape. Respect
(over-used word but the proper one for this context) is one thing; fawning
is another. There are a few seriously vain ones (Sting and Ben
Kingsley, sorry - Sir Ben Kingsley spring to mind), but the majority are
happy to be taken seriously for their efforts and their attainments.
Remember, the aim is to get them to tell you about themselves. You want them
to share knowledge that they are uniquely placed to have. You shouldn’t feel
coy about asking them questions that are more nosey than you might use in
“civilian” exchanges. This business of talking one-to-one with someone and
then telling the public about it may feel like and act of betrayal, and to
some extent it is precisely that. But it is not as if you are doing it
behind their backs. Besides, these are grown men and women, most of them
intelligent and experienced. So, once you’ve had your session with them,
it’s time for the hard bit, which is to…
11. Write the article as clearly as you can
So much harder than you think. I’ve been doing this for more than thirty
years, and on every occasion I think: ah yes, this is the time when I get
found out. This is the article which proves that for all my posturing, I’m
really empty and ignorant. But the more I have admitted this, the more I
find that everyone else seems to have the same fear. Take a giant, Tom
Stoppard. I have never forgotten him saying precisely the same thing about
whatever play he had just completed. They’ll scratch the surface and find
nothing, he said. Well, his plays are such risk-taking confections that you
can see why he might fear the structure won’t hold. But what he describes is
actually the impulse that keeps him on top of his game by telling him that
he’s lost it. Being anxious is OK. I’m less fearful about meeting titans of
celebrity than by confronting my own blank screen afterwards. Think of it as
an exercise in explanation. Try to tell your reader, who wasn’t present,
what it was like. Describe your subject. How they looked, where they were,
what they were there for. Yes, and what they were wearing, if it seems
relevant, if it sheds light on them. Say why we should be interested in this
person. If they are famous but not in the McCartney league, then reprise
some of the reasons for their prominence. Then…
12. Get them speaking
