Pop quiz hot shot, what’s the last celebrity profile you’ve read?
Another good question, did you learn anything insightful at all, or were you infuriated at the vapid narcissism of said celebrity you read about, as well as the ridiculous sycophancy of the person profiling them?
Patrick Goldstein has been in the game for a long time, writing for the L.A. Times and many other publications, and he just dubbed an article in the new GQ as the worst celebrity profile he’s ever read.
Instead of an in depth profile of Captain America star Chris Evans, the writer got drunk with the star, and couldn’t remember much after they drank together.
Okkkaaayyy…Not to mention this is the same month Michael Bay also put his foot in his mouth in his GQ profile, claiming it was Steven Spielberg, not him, that threw Megan Fox under the bus for Transformers 3.
As hard as I’ve struggled as a writer, I thank God every day I’ve never gotten into the world of interviewing big movie stars because life’s too short. You have to jump through so many hoops with their publicists, many of whom can be complete misery to deal with, and even once you get to said actor, a lot of times trying to get anything remotely interesting out of them is like pulling teeth.
A lot of celebrities try to come across as vague as possible to writers so it sounds like something when it’s obviously nothing.
I remember one Vanity Fair cover story on Brad Pitt that read like idiot haiku, and another ridiculous celebrity fluff piece I recalled was a cover story on Benico Del Toro for Talk magazine, where he was so clearly not interested in doing an interview, even with such tough questions as, “How many times have you truly been in love?,” and “When was the last time you cried?,” and “Down or foam pillow kind of guy?”
Talk may have been the highest paying magazine of the time, $5 a word, and the writer clearly earned her pay trying to get anything interesting out of him, or at least trying to build up enough of a word count to generate a nice paycheck.
Maybe all this nonsense should end now, and there should be no more celebrity journalism. Actors by and large have nothing to say, you’d rather drill holes in your head than deal with their dragon gatekeepers, and who really reads this crap anyways?
