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The Art of the Interview: Lessons from a Master of the Craft

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THE ULTIMATE INSIDER’S LOOK AT THE FINE ART OF INTERVIEWING

“I had a fantasy the other night that this interview is so great that they no longer want me to act—just do interviews. I thought of us going all over the world doing interviews—we’ve signed for three interviews a day for six weeks.”
—Al Pacino, in an interview with Lawrence Grobel

Highly respected in journalist circles and hailed as “the Interviewer’s Interviewer,” Lawrence Grobel is the author of well-received biographies of Truman Capote, Marlon Brando, James Michener, and the Huston family, with bylines from Rolling Stone and Playboy to the New York Times. He has spent his thirty-year career getting tough subjects to truly open up and talk. Now, in The Art of the Interview, he offers step-by-step instruction on all aspects of nailing an effective interview and provides an inside look on how he elicted such colorful responses

“I don’t like Shakespeare. I’d rather be in Malibu.” —Anthony Hopkins

“Feminists don’t like me, and I don’t like them.”—Mel Gibson

“I hope to God my friends steal my body out of a morgue and throw a party when I’m dead.”—Drew Barrymore

“I want you out of here. And I want those goddamn tapes!”—Bob Knight

“I smoked pot with my father when I was eleven in 1973. . . . He thought he was giving me a mind-extending experience just like he used to give me Hemingway novels and Woody Allen films.”—Anthony Kiedis

In The Art of the Interview , Grobel reveals the most memorable stories from his career, along with examples of the most candid moments from his long list of famous interviewees, from Oscar-winning actors and Nobel laureates to Pulitzer Prizewinning writers and sports figures. Taking us step by step through the interview process, from research and question writing to final editing, The Art of the Interview is a treat for journalists and culture vultures alike.

459 pages, Paperback

First published August 31, 2004

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About the author

Lawrence Grobel

56 books25 followers
Lawrence Grobel (www.lawrencegrobel.com) is a novelist, journalist, biographer, poet and teacher. Five of his 31 books have been singled out as Best Books of the Year by Publisher’s Weekly and many have appeared on Best Seller lists. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for his fiction. PEN gave his Conversations with Capote a Special Achievement Award. The Syndicat Francais de la Critique de Cinema awarded his Al Pacino their Prix Litteraire as the Best International Book of 2008. James A. Michener called his biography, The Hustons, “a masterpiece.” His The Art of the Interview is used as a text in many journalism schools. Writer’s Digest called him “a legend among journalists.” Joyce Carol Oates dubbed him “The Mozart of Interviewers” and Playboy singled him out as “The Interviewer’s Interviewer” after publishing his interviews with Barbra Streisand, Dolly Parton, Henry Fonda and Marlon Brando.
He has written for dozens of magazines and has been a Contributing Editor for Playboy, Movieline, World (New Zealand), and Trendy (Poland). He served in the Peace Corps, teaching at the Ghana Institute of Journalism; created the M.F.A. in Professional Writing for Antioch University; and taught in the English Department at UCLA for ten years. Since 2007 he has served as a jury member at the annual Camerimage Film Festival in Poland. He has appeared on CNN, The Today Show, Good Morning America, The Charlie Rose Show, NPR’s The Treatment, Marc Maron”s WTF and Adam Carolla’s podcasts, and in two documentaries, Salinger and Al Pacino’s Wilde Salome. His book, You, Talking to Me, highlights the lessons he’s learned from interviewing. His memoir, You Show Me Yours, takes him from the streets of Brooklyn to Marlon Brando’s island in Tahiti. Yoga? No, Shmoga! is his satirical take on staying healthy through stretching. His fiction includes 2 novels (Catch a Fallen Star, Begin Again Finnegan), a novella (The Black Eyes of Akbah), and 3 books of short stories (The Narcissist, Stuck, and Schemers, Dreamers, Cheaters, Believers). His most recent book is a memoir of his three years in the Peace Corps (Turquoise). His books are all available on Amazon and on his website. He is married to the artist Hiromi Oda and they have two daughters.

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5 stars
46 (24%)
4 stars
56 (29%)
3 stars
56 (29%)
2 stars
23 (12%)
1 star
8 (4%)
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
Profile Image for Molly.
220 reviews27 followers
May 7, 2010
I read this to try and learn from those in the business of interviewing others how to become successful at interviewing others. I would like to help book bloggers learn how to make their author interviews more interesting.

Larry Grobel interviews the super stars, and isn't afraid to tell you about it. Over. And over. And over. Name dropping and reminding you about it is his forte. But after excusing his braggadoccio you will find some legitimately valuable tips for newbies. They are basically:

-research as if you are writing a doctorate on your subject
-this will make you better prepared
-you will gain your subject's trust, knowing that you are interested and not a hack
-you will feel more confident and not make a fool of yourself
-notes and duplicate recording devices are good
-nerves are normal
-timing is everything

What dear Larry didn't reveal is how to formulate interesting questions. Larry is a natural. He has no idea how he comes up with the great questions that he does. He researches exhaustively and has confidence in his ability to work with changing personalities - when to challenge and when to try a different angle. But he never tells you how to map out a set of questions. Because for him, they flow naturally. Basically, read lots of magazines or newspapers and make a list.

I am not so naturally inclined. I want to know how to know which questions suck and how to tweak them or improve upon them. This book didn't help in that regard. Thus the 2 stars. The interviews shared were entertaining. The tips from others were very consistent. I got the message. But I still don't know how to come up with golden questions.
Profile Image for Beth Jusino.
Author 5 books65 followers
August 20, 2018
A book that did not age well. 100,000 words of the author's self-aggrandizing stories and transcripts of interviews with now-dated celebrities facing now-forgotten scandals, and maybe 5,000 words of advice on how to interview.
Profile Image for David Wolinsky.
11 reviews20 followers
July 2, 2012
Whoo boy.

I read this book based on a recommendation from a colleague. We're both professional writers. I interview people for a living, he doesn't. I thought I would scoop up a tip or two at the very least, but as it turns out, I didn't learn anything other than the fact that the author is in love with himself and thinks making the same point for nearly 500 pages is the same as being incisive.

You want to interview people? Here's what Larry recommends: Prepare.

Really. That's it.

Other than that, this book is full of name-dropping and more masturbation than in most hardcore porn.

In case you doubt me, check this out: The book ends with Larry interviewing himself.

Check, please!

I'm donating this book but really think it's better off in the trash since there's nothing you can't read from this review you you won't glean from his book.
Profile Image for Kaitlin.
177 reviews
February 10, 2017
Since my major is Journalism I saw this book at the library and thought maybe it would help me out a little bit for when I am writing a story for class. It helped a little bit but not that much.
Profile Image for W.T..
101 reviews3 followers
March 31, 2013
As a reporter, getting an interview right is paramount to a good story. While I found a number of tid bits in Grobel's "Art of the Interview," it predominantly talked about dealing with celebrities and their agents, which doesn't help as much when reporting on cops and government.
The later half of the book is a series of Q & As with editors and others who have conducted interviews with celebrities. Tried to getting through it but lost interest, especially with a staunch lack of interest in dealing with the coddled.
Profile Image for Becky.
Author 1 book26 followers
March 5, 2008
Interviewing has been part of my professional life for nearly 20 years, so I was looking forward to reading a book by someone who's been doing it twice as long, and with far more famous interview subjects than I tend to work with.

But it wasn't too far into the book before I realized the same points were being made over and over and over, using scenarios with different famous people as examples. The book seems to be part memoir, part how-to, and doesn't really satisfy as either one. It's too repetitive and not quite in-depth enough to be a good how-to, and it's not quite personal enough to be a memoir. By the time Grobel resorted to interviewing himself, I felt the book had wavered so much between memoir and how-to, that the self-interview seemed not only redundant (bringing up many of the same how-to points that had been reiterated throughout the rest of the book) but self-indulgent.

The book feels padded, especially by the interviews with prominent editors and interviewers -- I feel those could have been trimmed even more than they no doubt already were. I think the material in this book could have made a compelling magazine article. As it stands, however, it's a rather lightweight book.

The parts I most enjoyed were the parts that approached memoir. I loved hearing about Grobel's personal reactions to, and opinions of, big-name celebrities. I loved hearing stories about battling recalcitrant publicists. I appreciated the bits of personal information, such as Grobel's initial desire to be a novelist. Maybe there is a memoir inside Grobel. If he ever writes it, I'll read it, because the scraps of information he throws in The Art of the Interview are fascinating.
Profile Image for Phyllis.
61 reviews
December 19, 2007
This book specializes in techniques the author developed to interview celebrities for profiles and, more lately, Q&As in glossy magazines. He teaches an interview seminar at UCLA for students who aspire to a variety of careers where they believe his skills would be useful: medicine, social work, business. Some of my favorite passages are his anecdotes about interviewing Brando and Pacino; excerpts from his interviews with Jesse Ventura and an LA prosecutor who believes a man should be the boss in his home (but allows that he defers to his wife when it comes to everything from dinner plans to household expenses--you know, those little purse string things). The author includes his published interview with basketball coach Bob Knight. . . it's awesome. If you pick up this book and think it's not for you, skip to the end to read that interview. It's in Q&A format for the most part, but also has some amazing scenes.

It seems like the most difficult part of this career these days is negotiating with publicists, and making sure your publication doesn't do anything to undermine those negotiations. Most big-names that glossies are interested in are so spun and managed that something like the Brando interview isn't possible anymore. Kudos to anyone who's able to negotiate the access to write anything that's actually interesting in the celebrity world anymore!
Profile Image for Alex Jeffries.
Author 1 book2 followers
March 20, 2014
From time to time I get obsessed with taking on a new career path. One of the most recent iterations of that was the idea of interviewing people full-time, all the time. It was helped a long when a friend gave me Stud Terkel's Working, which lead me to The Art of the Interview. Grobel doesn't shy away from the amount of work and preparation and research goes into the best interviews you read, and the book is all the stronger for it. For me, who is often responsible for guest interviews on talk shows as a television producer, I found it illuminating to think about interviews in a much longer form. These are two worlds separated by the vast chasms of time and attention span, but I do refuse to believe there's no way of finding some middle ground. There are interviewers working who begin to get there, and others who have absolutely no interest. Grobel's book illustrates how to approach difficult, evasive and cantankerous subjects, and I can't help but think that's all applicable to what I'm doing now. Though, maybe with the help of a masterful interviewer I could have a bit more clarity.
Profile Image for Diana180.
268 reviews5 followers
Read
August 3, 2014
Sprawling compendium of advice and stories about doing celebrity interviews, which sound mostly horrific. For every piece of advice given, there's a contradiction elsewhere in the book, so you're left with: do whatever works to get the story. Excellent trivia: for example, I did not know that Alex Haley introduced the interview to Playboy, years before he wrote Roots. The crowdsourced advice from reporters was quite useful, the advice from editors less so. The back quarter of the book is a transcript of a boring full-day interview with Bobby Knight who frankly sounds like an automaton even when he's threatening to punch the reporter's lights out.
Profile Image for Dawid Zaraziński.
122 reviews2 followers
November 3, 2013
Książka typowo poradnikowa, której treść skondensować można w dwóch zdaniach: zawsze się przygotowuj oraz mimo najszczerszych chęci wywiady nie zawsze się udają. Na plus zaliczyć można: wiele przykładów z przeprowadzonych przez autora wywiadów, rozdziały prezentujące opinie innych dziennikarzy na temat wywiadów, sporo anegdotek dotyczących gwiazd. Minusów jest jednak więcej: ego autora, nierozwinięte wątki chociażby i najgorszy – fatalna redakcja książki (osiem brakujących stron!, błędy merytoryczne np. przekręcenie czyjegoś imienia itp.). Książkę mogą przeczytać studenci dziennikarstwa, ale tylko pod kątem rozwinięcia warsztatu.
Profile Image for Ryan Meitzler.
41 reviews
June 7, 2013
Lots of great insight into how to conduct and plan for interviews for print, TV, etc. As I wanted to learn better interview techniques, Art of the Interview is a great starting point with lots of examples, but also marred by a bit of overindulgence. At many points it feels like Grobel is rambling, and when the book is spinning its wheels or repeating itself, I just felt the book could have been more succinct and not lose much because of it. But, AoTI is still enjoyable, especially for Grobel's transcripts and comments during past interviews.
Profile Image for Grace.
4 reviews1 follower
May 27, 2016
God I love this. As someone who enjoys speaking to people and hearing their stories, and does it for a living too, I equally enjoyed reading about my craft. I went through this so fast, too fast, because I couldn't get enough. Grobel writes with so much clarity, intention and eloquence, it's easy to see why he would be the immediate choice of author to pen this topic. I've always wondered that if my house were to ever burn down and I could only take one book with me, which it would be. I think I have my answer.
Profile Image for Andrew Kahn.
109 reviews
June 20, 2011
Some good tips, but could have been half the length. Most important thing when it comes to interviewing: preparation. The more you learn about your subject in advance (research, including reading prior interviews) the better your questions will be and more likely the subject will be to open up to you.
Profile Image for Kelly Lynn Thomas.
810 reviews20 followers
August 4, 2011
I really don't give a crap about the celebrities he talks about interviewing, but the way he takes you behind the interviewing process definitely helped me improve my own interviewing skills as a journalist. If you are a journalist or even if you talk to people a lot as part of your job, this is a good book to pick up.
Profile Image for Susan Cronk.
Author 17 books23 followers
May 30, 2015
When you're conducting research for a nonfiction book, it stands to reason that interviews will be a part of that research. Grobel's book is a great help in learning how to interview others well, to make the best use of your time, and how to prepare beforehand. I'm glad I have this as part of my library so I can refer back to it.
Profile Image for Andrea.
34 reviews4 followers
August 28, 2009
This book is in a sense a huge pep talk, so it's good for people starting out in journalism. It's very entertaining (you learn crazy stuff about celebrities, and in that sense it's also distracting).
Profile Image for Jordan.
15 reviews8 followers
November 18, 2016
I had to read this book for my journalism class. It was so incredibly dull I had to force myself to keep reading and turning the page. Aside from being boring nothing in the book was memorable less than a week after I had read the book I could not remember a single word of advice from it.
Profile Image for Joseph.
61 reviews15 followers
August 5, 2007
If you can sift through the incessant name dropping and dirt dishing, maybe you can find some pointers on how to conduct a good interview. I personally wasn't able to, but knock yourself out.
Profile Image for Monica.
12 reviews
March 6, 2024
This is an important read for aspiring interviewers. Grobel has great tips on how to get the good stuff and how to write profiles even when you don't.
Profile Image for Talia.
165 reviews37 followers
Read
May 11, 2017
Super interesting! I read celebrity profiles differently now, and there's a lot to learn about the art of conversation and the ever-changing face of journalism that holds up.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews

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