Sitting down for an interview with National Public Radio’s Terry Gross seems a lot like getting together for a cup of catch-up coffee with an old friend.
She gathered a lot of information about her interviewees prior to the interview process. This was made apparent in the questions she asked and the way that she prefaced them.
She researched many different areas like their acting histories, current news and affairs, and personal more intimate details from other publication interviews.
She was really good with the wording of her questions in a way that made the interview feel more like a casual conversation between familiar colleagues than a stiff awkward encounter with an A-list celebrity.
She talked first, to actors Brad Pitt and Aaron Paul from the AMC series Breaking Bad, about their work- something that journalists seem to use as secondary information or leave out completely from their media coverage today.
She didn’t only ask questions about current work. Instead, she used previous work history to tie together current projects and each actor’s style as a whole.
By using what she’d researched about their personal lives, she was able to ask the two men personal questions that were unique from the typical prompts they’ve answered elsewhere time and time again.
Gross used what she learned to each actor to built up to a question that didn’t leave space for a simple answer.
Instead, she created space for explanation and for the most part, Pitt and Paul did just that.
She asked Aaron Paul about using acting as therapy after talking about growing up as a minister’s child and the restrictions he had as a developing adolescent.
The way that she built up to the questions she asked made for a much better and insightful answer.
She had follow up questions but instead of using predetermined questions, she seemed to go with the flow.
If she asked a question and got an interesting answer, she seemed to go from there.
It not only made the interview flow better, it made it more interesting.
When Terry asked Brad Pitt about Angelina Jolie and marriage, he didn’t really give her an answer but instead of pushing the topic onto him, she turned the conversation in a different direction.
It was a smart move on her part because instead of pushing him towards a corner, she guided him in a different direction (talking about New Orleans and their charity work) where he was more willing to talk.
Terry Gross has a strong interview strategy and it works well for both her, the interviewee, and the listeners.
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