It shouldn’t haPPen to a film journalist
Editor-at-large Jamie GRaham lifts the lid on film journalism.
Jamie discusses the indelicate intersection of interviews and illness.
As I write this month’s column, the last ripples of nausea are receding from a bout of food poisoning brought on by failing to boil a bag of seaweed as per the instructions, instead opting to eat it raw to ‘keep the goodness in’. An hour ago, these ripples of nausea were more rolling waves of sickness as I sat opposite Mike Leigh in his office, trying not to yak on the floor.
The law of averages dictates that, sooner or later, the humble film journalist will have to climb off their sickbed to meet with a star or filmmaker. You can’t, after all, postpone Tom Cruise until your man flu subsides, or say, “Sorry Meryl, I shouldn’t have had that final Jägerbomb last night.” (Note: this one has never happened to me, though I did once run out of an interview with Daryl Hannah to barf in a sink. I was young, it was my first trip to LA, and I’d rather overdone it the night before.)
The big queasy
Sometimes it’s simply a case of a common cold, though even the sniffles is treated like the virus out of Contagion in these meets: Hollywood types are positively germophobic and I don’t have a spleen after being in a car crash, aged five (I wasn’t driving), meaning I’m floored if someone sneezes within 100 yards.
Meeting Tom Hanks, he coughed his hellos through a handkerchief then chose to bump elbows rather than shake hands. An extremely snotty Keira Knightley, shivering inside a huge jumper that she stretched over her knocking knees, possibly infected me with a virulent cold. And Guillermo del Toro gamely clambered from his death bed to join me for an on-stage Q&A. Always one for a bear hug, he enfolded me in a clammy embrace and then gave fantastic quote for 30 minutes despite looking like one of his own fish-men
– one that was green around the gills, at that.
Other times, the ‘illness’ is self-induced. As well as that Daryl Hannah moment, much-younger me partied in Cannes until 6am, got three hours kip, slept through my alarm, was awakened by a PR’s phone call (“Where are you?”), and then interviewed David Cronenberg on a sweltering beach terrace having had no time to shower. I reeked of booze and my questions were mumbled and jumbled; his answers, as ever, were intelligent and precise.
ToileT humour
The worst situation I’ve ever been in, though, was on a set visit for Melissa McCarthy comedy Life Of The Party. As the day began, so did my stomach bug, the kind of, shall we say, explosive illness that demands you’re never more than five metres from a toilet. Unfortunately, the production was shooting in a restaurant in Atlanta and the only bathroom was on the other side of the shot, requiring me to walk (well, run) past the table occupied by McCarthy, Maya Rudolph, Julie Bowen, Jacki Weaver and more.
Making matters considerably worse were the rolling takes lasting 10-plus minutes a pop – great for improv, terrible for a quivering journo busting for the bog. How I didn’t ‘have an accident’ is still a miracle to me, and I spent most of the afternoon clenched from the curls on my head to the cuticles on my toes. What’s more, whenever the blessed word “cut!” was yelled, I had the ignominy of sprinting past the cast – or at least speed-shuffling with thighs clamped together…
Interviewing McCarthy later that day, I felt the need to explain, telling her of my stomach bug and admitting
I’d been this close to having a Bridesmaids moment. She at least saw the funny side. All I saw was the horror of what could have been and so nearly was.
‘i did once Run ouT of an inTeRview wiTh daRyl hannah To baRf in a sink’