The Media Interview

Just because you’re doing an interview for print or the web, don’t think that your demeanour won’t become part of the finished story. Here’s the opening of a piece on Diana Krall from The Telegraph - the focus on her attitude permeates the entire article. Now Diana Krall may not care about the story coming out this way, but if you’re not a celebrity, I wouldn’t suggest giving the writer this kind of ammunition:

For entirely selfish reasons I have been trying hard to like Diana Krall. I go to see her in concert, you see. I have all her albums. And the next time I go to see her in concert, or play one of her albums, I don’t want to have it ruined by a voice in my head saying: ‘What a cow.’ But from the moment she turned up late, pointedly ignored me while she poured herself a coffee, and then greeted me with a crusher handshake, the world’s bestselling jazz singer and pianist has been in a foul mood. Ominously, when I try to melt the permafrost by congratulating her on her pregnancy (her first, at 41, baby due in December) and asking her the standard jokey questions about whether she has developed any odd cravings or caught herself behaving erratically, she glowers at me, actually glowers, and says in a flat voice: ‘You might just find out.’

After five minutes of her blocking my questions with defensive, one-sentence answers delivered in a Canadian monotone, I wonder if I shouldn’t just ask if she wants to reschedule. Then I remember how tight her schedule is: she flew into London from LA last night to begin a three-week tour of Europe - so jetlag might partly account for her charmlessness. So I smile and say: ‘You don’t like being interviewed much, do you?’ It seems to help. She sighs: ‘I don’t like talking about myself.’