Please, Don’t Try This in Public

I always squirm when I watch a question-answer session on TV or in person, especially when those fielding the questions are celebrities.

In the entertainment world, it often seems that anything goes, that no question is too weird or rude (a la Joan Rivers’ amazing remark to Mariah Carey on Oscar night: “Everyone says you’ve gained weight”).

For me it brings to mind the old saw comparing journalism to brain surgery--both are vital procedures, but ones you really don’t want to watch.

While there’s a long, hard road of study, training and practice required of anyone who wants to use sharp instruments to noodle in someone’s noodle, because of the ever-present presence of celebrity interviews on TV, it’s easy to feel that anyone can do it.

Too often, anyone does.

That’s what happened recently at a seminar and Q&A; for the acclaimed HBO series “The Sopranos,” about a working-class New Jersey Mafioso, his family and his associates in “the business.”

The seminar was put on by the Museum of Television & Radio in Beverly Hills, which hosts this kind of thing periodically.

The seminar gathered series creator and writer David Chase and actors James Gandolfini, Edie Falco, Lorraine Bracco, Michael Imperiolo and Nancy Marchand. It was moderated by Robert M. Batscha, president of the TV-radio museum.

As a fan of the show, I would have wanted someone like Bill Moyers running things, someone skilled enough to dig beneath both the show’s humor and its more contemplative sides.

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Batscha at least is in the entertainment business and has a wealth of information and experience to draw upon in talking to actors, producers and writers. Still, even he had his rocky moments.

When he started taking questions from the audience, things really turned wacky. The first guy to raise his hand rambled at length about his “Goodfellas” theory and “the glorification of the gangster.” Then he asked what it meant to the actors’ personal lives to play them. Everyone onstage was dumbfounded.

The guy obviously had put a lot of thought into his question, but his timing was waaaaaaay off. Somebody shouted “Lighten up!” Someone else chimed in: “It’s just a TV show.”

Gandolfini, who stars as de facto crime boss Tony Soprano, looked befuddled, then shrugged: “It means nothing to me personally.”

Guest: 1; Interviewer: 0.

Which brings up Interview Rule 1: Never start an interview with a deeply philosophical question.

Another guy asked whether the creators consciously chose contemporary rock music rather than songs by Italian American pop crooners such as Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

Said Chase: “Yes.”

Rule 2: Avoid questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no--unless that’s all you’re after.

What he should have asked was why they made that choice.

Rule 3: Don’t try to impress an interview subject with how hip or witty you are.

Find fresh questions that might elicit answers the subject hasn’t given 1,000 times before.

Talking to Garth Brooks a few years ago, I asked, “Why you? Why has Garth Brooks achieved this phenomenal popularity over so many other country contenders?”

He said “Man, nobody ever asked me that question before.” He went on to reveal a lot about himself as he thought about it: “It’s weird. I’m not who I look up to. I’m not one-tenth [as talented as] the people I look up to. It’s difficult to understand why the hell . . . this thing is happening like it is.”

It’s a rush when you take someone through new territory, and people you’re interviewing generally light up in turn when they get the feeling an interviewer has done his or her homework.

You don’t just sit down and say, “Tell me about yourself” and get a great interview.

Several years ago, before starting an interview with an author, I mentioned that I had enjoyed his latest book. It stopped him cold.

“You mean you actually read it?” He said most interviewers start with “So tell me what your new book is about.” That stopped me cold.

I’ll never forget the Academy of Country Music awards show I covered back when Alabama used to win everything. A radio reporter asked leader Randy Owen the laziest question in the book after the group won the first of five awards that night: “How do you feel?” After Alabama’s second award was announced, the reporter asked, “How do you feel now?” And after the third, “Well, now how do you feel?”

An interviewer is sort of like a circus knife-thrower. Each question needs to land just so. Hit too far off the mark and you’re laughed off the stage. Nick your target and you’ll be back cleaning the elephants.