It shouldn’t happen to a film journa list
Awkward small talk: Jamie vs uncomfortable silences.
I offered a hand, thought she was coming in for a kiss, and found myself in a bear hug
I’ve just got back from interviewing an Oscar-winning director in LA and I’m still shuddering at the thought of how our meeting ended.
He’d invited me into the edit suite of his new movie to see 15 minutes of extraordinary footage, and, shellshocked, I stumbled into the foyer to heartily shake his hand.
Gratified by my superlatives, he clamped his free hand on my shoulder and gave it a manly squeeze – a gesture that I felt, God knows why, I should return, only to somehow miss his shoulder and feel my hand slither down his chest to settle on his stomach. A look of puzzlement entered his eyes. Horrified, I attempted to camouflage my mistake by giving his belly a friendly pat before hurriedly scuttling away. Let’s just hope he put it down to some bizarre British custom.
The moments before and after an interview – the hellos and goodbyes – can be awkward. For while the main meat of the meet is a somewhat scripted scenario in which both journalist and ‘talent’ play their parts upon a much-trodden stage, those little windows either side are open to improv. Handshake or air-kiss? One air-kiss or two? (Meeting Shailene Woodley, I offered a hand, thought she was coming in for a kiss and then found myself in a bear hug; she’s a free spirit, that one.) And that’s just the start of the problem. To launch immediately into the Q&A format feels abrupt, so do you comment on the weather, tell of the turbulence on your flight? It’s that everyday ordeal of scrabbling for small talk, writ large. And sometimes it can be magnified to squirm-inducing proportions…
Take the time Viggo Mortensen had a go at me for asking about The Lord Of The Rings when he’d flown into London to discuss Jauja (which, to be fair, we’d talked about for 20 minutes). Two minutes after saying our not-so-fond farewells we found ourselves in the hotel lift together; descending two floors felt like a journey down to hell. Still, that was nothing compared to a colleague’s parting of ways with Tom Hiddleston. Hugs and kisses done, they discovered they were walking to the same tube station and dutifully plodded off side-by-side, a journey made all the more peculiar by Hiddleston being repeatedly stopped for photos. My colleague, of course, was each time handed the phone to take the picture. It’s experiences like these that almost make me wish everyone was as abrupt as Kevin Bacon, who turned on the charm the moment I clicked ‘record’ and turned his back the moment I pressed ‘stop’.
Still, the worst scramble for small talk that I know of is when I was due to interview Mark Wahlberg for Contraband and he phoned early, while I was outside having a smoke. A colleague picked up, panicked, and told him I’d nipped to the bathroom. Minutes passed in stop-start conversation (“What time is it in New York?” “10am. What time is it in London?” “3pm”) until finally Wahlberg spat, “Gee, how long does this guy spend in the bathroom?” Little did I know, when I at last took the phone, that he was under the impression I had serious bowel problems. Jamie will return next issue... For more misadventures follow: @jamie_graham9 on Twitter.