# Bad interviewees
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [September 23, 2011, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310 "2011-09-23T06:10:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2011, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/41 "2011-09-24T04:40:45Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#):
>
> Brando did a lively interview with Larry King in the years before his death. The interview was taped at Brando’s home and Brando was in pretty good spirits. IIRC he even kissed Larry at one point.
I remember that! A big old smackeroo on the lips, leaning across the table.
Lady Gaga interview with Larry King, just before he retired. It was done via satellite. Larry King at one end, (and frankly either totally uninterested or actually starting to lose some of his faculties) bellowing questions: “So! Lady Gaga! Tell us, how did you get that name, Gaga???” … and on the other end, Lady Gaga looking equally out of it, actually looking high as a kite! And those awful, dark sunglasses totally askew on her face! There was an agonizingly long delay between questions and answers…“Well, Larry, I picked that name..” and so it went. It was one of the longest, most cringe-worthy interviews I’d ever seen on Larry King, hilarious in its way. Not that anything bad was said or done, but both of them held my attention!
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### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2011, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/42 "2011-09-24T04:47:19Z")
> [@Sampiro](#):
>
> I just watched part of that for the first time since it was in the news and it was even crazier and more obnoxious than I remembered it.
> [@Acsenray](#):
>
> Thornton was there with his band and had specified that the interview was to be only about his music, not about his acting career. So, Jian did a short introduction, giving an overview of Thornton, just mentioning the fact that listeners might know him from his Oscar-winning acting career, but that he was there to talk about his music. From that point on Thornton behaved bizarrely, refusing to answer any questions coherently. It came out that he was pissed that Jian even _mentioned_ the fact that he was an actor and suggested that Jian implied that music was some kind of farting-around hobby. Then Thornton also refused to play – he’s the drummer and singer – so his band played an “instrumental” version of the song they had planned to play.
>
> [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJWS6qyy7bw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJWS6qyy7bw)
Was Thorton stoned?! If not, he deserved another Oscar.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2011, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/43 "2011-09-24T05:07:10Z")
I don’t think he needs to act to come off as a prick.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2011, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/44 "2011-09-24T05:11:35Z")
The best thing is that after a disastrous performance in which he got booed by a Canadian audience, Willie Nelson kicked him off the tour.
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### Author:  [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2011, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/45 "2011-09-24T07:29:26Z")
Harrison Ford was my first thought.
Kristen Stewart was really awful on Letterman a while back.
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### Author:  [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2011, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/46 "2011-09-24T11:21:07Z")
> [@Nobody](#):
>
> Did you know he is a big fan of Bill O’Reilly?
And this is relevant to the topic how?
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### Author:  [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2011, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/47 "2011-09-24T11:25:49Z")
It’s an interesting aside about someone mentioned in a thread but not sufficiently so to warrant a thread of its own. I see no problem with the remark.
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### Author:  [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2011, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/48 "2011-09-24T18:34:51Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#):
>
> And this is relevant to the topic how?
I just thought it was interesting, and I was surprised when I learned it. And there are a ton of threads with posts not related to the OP.
Anyway, this is my thread, my OP, and I can go off topic if I want to. 😛
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### Author:  [@carlotta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlotta)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2011, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/49 "2011-09-24T19:14:12Z")
The worst interview I ever heard was [Gene Simmons (of Kiss) interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXMpo6rrUcI) It wasn’t boring, but he came across as the world’s biggest boor and pretty much confirmed every preconceived notion I had of him as a self-centered misogynistic asshole.
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### Author:  [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)
#### Post date: [September 24, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/50 "2011-09-24T19:23:12Z")
> [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](#):
>
> He’s probably sick of hearing the interviewers ask him if he’d bullwhip or lightsaber a mugger if he was attacked on the street.
I imagine it would probably go down kind of like this:
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DzcOCyHDqc)
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### Author:  [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)
#### Post date: [September 25, 2011, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/51 "2011-09-25T21:10:09Z")
> [@Euryphaessa](#):
>
> I was going to say Viggo too. No personality of his own.
First I leap to Robin Williams’ defense, now it’s Viggo’s. Sheesh. 🙂
Anyway, Viggo Mortensen is, in addition to being an actor, a published writer and poet, musician, artist, and photographer, and was also once married to Exene Cervenka, who is awesome in her own right (half of the legendary punk band, X), so…I don’t think “no personality of his own” is the issue. Dude’s probably just shy.
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### Author:  [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2011, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/52 "2011-09-27T13:27:01Z")
There was one interview I saw of James Brown that was just awful(I don’t remember who the interviewer was). He was very obviously drunk/high/cracked out and answered every question in song lyrics. Sung song lyrics. Badly.
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### Author:  [@Death\_of\_Rats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Death_of_Rats)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2011, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/53 "2011-09-27T14:35:21Z")
> [@psychonaut](#):
>
> Well, there was the infamous [Sex Pistols interview on the Today Show](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTM3CdzB4Vs). But if the Pistols were jerks, then it’s only fair to consider they were provoked by a drunken Bill Grundy.
Any interview that includes Jonny “Rotton” Lydon is going to be a tramatic and uncomfortable experience for the interviewer. I thnk it would probably be a lot easier to get through it drunk as a skunk.
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### Author:  [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2011, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/54 "2011-09-27T15:29:13Z")
I saw an interview with Nastassja Kinski once in which she came off as having an IQ of about 80. I was giving allowances for the probability that English was not her first language, but even so, the interviewer kept reducing the level of the questions to the point where all she had to do was paw the ground with her hoof.
Her Wikipedia page says she speaks five languages, so she can’t be as dense as she came out in the interview, but I was wondering how she remembered to blink.
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### Author:  [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2011, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/55 "2011-09-27T15:44:37Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#):
>
> Her Wikipedia page says she speaks five languages, so she can’t be as dense as she came out in the interview
The ability to speak multiple languages is a natural skill of all humans. It doesn’t have any necessary correlation to overall intelligence of an individual. It could just mean that you were exposed to many languages in your youth. It doesn’t mean that you will be able to carry on an interesting conversation in any of them.
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### Author:  [@ScatteredFrog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ScatteredFrog)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2011, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/56 "2011-09-27T16:00:56Z")
Perhaps one of the oddest, I don’t know if I’d say WORST, is Brian Wilson…at least, he’s unpredictable. Get him on a good day, he’ll talk up a storm. Get him on a bad day, he’ll give you one-word answers and answers that don’t make sense (like, how he’ll mention that he just took his daughters to see _Norbit_, then when asked what his favorite movie ever is, he’ll say _Norbit_). Basically, if he doesn’t feel like talking, he’ll clam up. He’ll even end the interview: “This was supposed to be ten minutes, right?..well, it’s been ten minutes now. That will be all.”
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### Author:  [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2011, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/57 "2011-09-27T16:20:35Z")
When she was younger, Meryl Streep was so obviously uncomfortable, solemn and serious in interviews that they pretty much ground to a dead stop. She’s loosened up a little over the years, but her talk show interviews still seem to be set up so that she can tell a well-rehearsed story or do a little business to show she’s just folks after all.
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### Author:  [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2011, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/58 "2011-09-27T17:09:18Z")
I did a lot of interviewing for \*Movieline \*in the '90s, and the two who stand out in my nightmares are Sean Young and Jill Clayburgh.
Sean Young managed to be simultaneously spacey, unpleasant and boring. Jill Clayburgh was one of the nicest ladies I have ever met, but she had \*nothing \*interesting to say–at least, not to me and not on the record. Pulling _teeth_.
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### Author:  [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2011, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/59 "2011-09-27T18:22:05Z")
> [@Acsenray](#):
>
> The ability to speak multiple languages is a natural skill of all humans. It doesn’t have any necessary correlation to overall intelligence of an individual. It could just mean that you were exposed to many languages in your youth. It doesn’t mean that you will be able to carry on an interesting conversation in any of them.
Well, then, I’m satisfied that I can return to my original conclusion: She’s either as dumb as a saltine cracker, or she was on some major pharmaceuticals.
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### Author:  [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2011, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bad-interviewees/597310/60 "2011-09-27T18:55:24Z")
Stephen Colbert’s extended interview with Radiohead on Monday night went pretty badly, though to be fair, Colbert doesn’t do straight interviews.
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