Why is it so hard to get red carpet interviews right?

Every year, watching the Oscars red carpet brings back gruesome memories

My most hellish, haunting, soul-crushingly mortifying celebrity interviews have all taken place hovering to the side of a strip of red polyester: the red carpet.

A grumpy Rob Brydon telling me he was wearing “a jacket, shirt and trousers” after I asked him about his outfit (at a fashion magazine party); an aloof Steve Coogan telling me to “get better questions” after I asked him if he had a party trick (why is that comedians are always the most miserable?). Frantic publicists pushing little known models or influencers into the camera without telling me their names – I once resorted to asking one unidentifiable person: ‘so, what have you been up to this year?’. During one red carpet interview for British GQ, hosted on Facebook Live, Jared Leto looked at the number of viewers at the top of the video and, mortifyingly, commented on how low the number was. He then proceeded to quite literally press the “end Live” button, and so it ended.

Jared’s beady eye on the paltry viewing numbers

I was 23 years-old with little experience of interviewing anyone by that point, let alone doing so with the charisma and ease required for interviewing a celebrity on camera. When I look back at those videos I want to curl up and die: barely any eye contact, not enough smiling, so many ‘ums’, monotone delivery. Absurdly, I didn’t even have a microphone. 

Which is why, every year, when some poor hack has gone viral for an “awkward” (or worse) interview on the Oscars red carpet, I feel a pang of empathy – though they may look a breeze, red carpet interviews are probably the most difficult kind of interview to do well.

For a start you never know who you’re going to interview. I remember spending one hungover festival abroad making something like 100 cue cards ahead of GQ’s Men of the Year, for the 100 possible names on the guest list, many of which were sports people I had never even heard of. (“Sorry, you’re going to interview Pele”, a stunned male friend said when he saw me writing his name cue card. “Yes, um, what’s he done again?” I replied.) Sure, there were the event’s winners, wearing the award sponsor Hugo Boss and so more likely to be chaperoned over by their publicists, but often these celebrities were so famous they simply didn’t need to walk the red carpet at all. 

So you’d end up with the B list, who arrive rather awkwardly, because they’re nervous and sober and alone, and so a little combative, even a little dismissive, because they know they’re not the priority and they need to compensate. Or perhaps they’re embarrassed by the whole pomp and ceremony of celebrity and the fact that, despite their decades in the business, they still bloody need the press. 

The celebrities who walked the red carpet buoyed by a little squad, or perhaps, proudly with a family member, were always much more amenable. One of my few good red carpet experiences was with new BFFs Winnie Harlow, Ashley Graham and Bella Hadid, who were clearly excited to spend an evening together, rather than perform perfunctory brand obligations. But this was back in 2016, Hadid was just 19 years old, and not yet jaded by fame.

Winnie Harlow, Ashley Graham, Bella Hadid

Speaking of Ashley Graham, the model might have more to say on this subject than I do: last year she co-hosted the Oscars pre-show on ABC and went viral for a red carpet interview so dire it makes my Rob Brydon experience look cute. He begins by shutting down her first question “are you excited to see anyone win tonight” with a humourless, “oh, no one in particular”, and then answers the follow-up question, “well what are you wearing tonight then?” with “just my suit”. 

The nadir came after Graham asked him about his experience of starring in Glass Onion. “Well, I’m barely in it,” Grant replies, before Graham wraps up the interview and he raises his eyebrows mockingly. Predictably, debate raged on the internet over whether Graham should have just “asked better questions” or whether Grant was being a dick, or “just British”.

In my opinion Grant was out of line. Yes the questions were inane and he must be sick to the back teeth of being interviewed after decades in the business, but also, what did he expect? It’s kind of what he signed up for when he voluntarily decided to become incredibly famous, star in films that might get nominated for Oscars, attend the Oscars, and walk the red carpet. 

Would he have preferred Graham to ask him about the meaning of life? Debate whether aliens are real? Or, as I once regretfully did (with a different celebrity, and by order of my Editor), demand what he thinks of Trump? The red carpet is not the time and place for serious or earnest conversation – the mood is meant to be fun and celebratory, and each interview lasts only a few minutes. But I’m pretty sure Grant would have been equally impatient with a wackier approach too. In 2017, after boring myself to death with cookie cutter questions, I tried to go for silly, light-hearted questions that would loosen the celebs up. But it’s 50/50 who will respond well: many celebrities are so up-tight at these kinds of events, that anything too irreverent or left-field makes them think they’re being mocked. Or they don’t have anything ‘fun’ to reply on the spot and then feel like a lemon. 

Of course an exception to this is Amelia Dimoldenberg, who has built a globally successful brand off awkward celebrity interviews with her YouTube show Chicken Shop Date, and, impressively, has now hosted the Oscars Vanity Fair red carpet for the second year running. It’s a smart decision from the Academy, who desperately needed to make the awards interesting for the younger generations, and Dimoldenberg is always entertaining. Her format is centred around the idea that she is desperately single, the celebrity is her date, and so the questions can be juicily nosy while remaining entirely respectful. 

The secret, I think, is that she is charmingly unthreatening – her jokes are well researched (she has said she prepares cue cards for every person who might walk the red carpet), often riffing on a celebrity’s song lyric, film, their name or an endearing part of their celebrity folklore. Crucially, these jokes are never cruel. This year she played rock, paper, scissors with The Rock, and managed to make an initially rather staid question and answer with Billie Eilish – “are you excited to perform?”, “yes it’s been an amazing journey and this is a perfect way to end” – into something more absurd. “This is the final 100m, it’s the sprint,” Dimoldenberg said, before randomly asking Billie’s brother Finneas, “are you good at running?” Finneas then makes a joke about a running bear, Dimoldenberg asks if they’ve ever seen a real-life bear, and suddenly they’re talking about racoons. And therein lies the magic of Chicken Shop Date.

Essential, too, is that Dimoldenberg makes herself the butt of the joke – her date laughs at her awkwardness, rather than the other way round (case in point, last year’s viral Golden Globes interview with Andrew Garfield). The celebrity always feels in control; so while the format may feel daring, the status quo remains.

Chicken Shop Date is now in the unusual position of a celebrity interview the celebrities actually like appearing on, rather than feeling compelled as part of the press circuit. Publicists have told me that, in particular, it’s perfect for clients who need to be seen as more personable, whose image needs a little loosening. I finish almost every Chicken Shop Date liking the celebrity more than I did before, which, when it comes to press, is rare.

The trouble is that now more traditional interviewers are trying to borrow some of her more provocative, informal style to less desirable effects. The other month a red carpet interview at the BAFTAs went viral, because the interviewer Colin Paterson asked Andrew Scott inappropriately lewd questions about Barry Keoghan’s naked scenes in Saltburn. After mentioning prosthetics, Paterson said, “How well do you know him?” prompting Scott to walk away with a look of disgust. The BBC received so many complaints it was forced to apologise.

Colin Patersons’s BAFTA gaffe (BBC News)

So, when was the very first red carpet interview anyway? The red carpet itself was first rolled out by theatre magnate Sid Grauman after he organised Hollywood’s first ever premiere in 1922 for the Douglas Fairbanks film Robin Hood. It wasn’t present at the Oscars however until 1961 – and even then the footage from the night was in black and white, so viewers wouldn’t have noticed the colour. And, while Army Archerd from Variety Magazine would announce the Oscars red-carpet arrivals to camera, proper celebrity interaction on the red carpet didn’t start until 1994, when Joan Rivers hosted the Golden Globe red carpet for E!. 

It was Rivers who launched the now staple ‘who are you wearing?’ question, which, at the time, was criticised by the press for being “stupid and shallow” (probably because reporters were annoyed celebrities were stepping on their turf). Rivers later explained why she chose that question: “Other reporters always said, ‘I’m not going to ask that. I’m going to ask how [the actors] feel politically!’ But actors don’t want to hear that! They’re nervous. They haven’t eaten for three days. They’re trying to remember who the damn designer [who made their dress] is. Their hair is held together with extensions. You can’t ask them anything difficult!” 

That’s not to say Rivers didn’t have her fun – in 1997 she “terrorised” Nicole Kidman, wearing a yellow gown by John Galliano, by demanding she “Come tell me why you wore such an ugly colour!” before shouting: “I hate that colour! You are making me puke!” and, um, miming said puking, rather vividly. And she could be rude, too. She once asked Julia Roberts, “do you diet?” and Kidman again, “Do you ever think people don’t respect you because you’re pretty?”

But of course Rivers was herself a celebrity and a comedian, she could get away with things that journalists couldn’t. Recently I’ve wondered if Dimoldenberg’s own success on the red carpet is boosted by her own ascending stardom – it’s now common for red carpet attendees to come towards her with open arms, without being shooed over by a publicist, telling her they’re a fan. (Actually, I preferred her interviews when she was more unknown, and celebrities were still rather flummoxed by her.) She’s now more famous than many of the stars she interviews, and celebrities interviewing other celebrities has been an industry trend for a while. In a way, it’s another reminder of the media’s loosening power: publishers know that, these days, to get good access, humdrum journalists often won’t cut it. It’s Actors on Actors, Musicians on Musicians. 

And, while celebrities can perhaps make their peers more comfortable, it can lead to some stomach-turning chumminess: “you were so good in X!” “no YOU were so good in Y!” “you look AMAZING” “sorry no I mean look at YOU!” (And yes I may be talking about most Vanessa Hudgens Oscars red carpet interviews.)

The celebrity upgrade doesn’t always guarantee a good interview if the chemistry isn’t on their side, too. This year Laverne Cox’s interviews were being shared on Twitter as “unbelievably awkward” (particularly after she handed deaf actor Marlee Matlin a microphone instead of her interpreter, eek) with one user tweeting “Maybe this is a hot take, but having celebrities do the red carpet interviews instead of TV journalists is a terrible call. You can tell they don’t know how to do interviews or ad lib.”

Dimoldenberg, who studied fashion journalism, interned at publications such as VICE, and has a comedian’s timing, luckily doesn’t have that problem. But as with anything that revolves around a character, or format, it can get tired quickly, the person behind it can get bored. A couple of years ago Dimoldenberg launched a production company, Dimz Inc, and it’s been rumoured she’ll retire Chicken Shop Date as soon as she lands her white elephant: Drake. In the meantime, it might be worth journalists thinking up some new ideas.

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