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Slate Culture

Working: How to Interview Celebrities, With Taffy Brodesser-Akner

Slate Culture

Slate Podcasts

Arts, Tv & Film, Music

4.42K Ratings

🗓️ 12 July 2020

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, host Isaac Butler talks to novelist and celebrity profile writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner. In the interview, Taffy shares how she’s able to land interviews with celebrities and how she structures her pieces. She also explains why she’s a “champion advice-taker” and tells the story of how her bestselling novel, Fleishman Is in Trouble, started as a failed magazine pitch. Don’t miss her New York Times Magazine profiles of Gwyneth Paltrow and Val Kilmer. After the interview, Isaac and co-host June Thomas discuss a couple of Taffy’s most ingenious pieces of wisdom. Check out Isaac’s profile of Nathan Lane. Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to [email protected]. And if you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on Working. It’s only $35 for the first year, and you can get a free two-week trial. Sign up now to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Do you hear that? It might sound like nothing to you, but it's actually the sound of nuclear, wind and solar energy.

0:11.0

At EDF, we're busy generating more British

0:14.2

zero carbon electricity than anyone to help keep future energy

0:17.7

cost down for everyone and help cut UK carbon emissions to nothing.

0:21.8

Sound good to you? Find out more about our

0:24.9

zero carbon generation at edf energy.com slash helping Britain. If you're dealing with a very famous person, one of the problems you encounter is that the reason the person is worthy of being profiled is not necessarily

0:44.7

because they are good at talking about what they do and that's where the writer

0:50.6

comes in. It's my job to make my story good.

0:57.0

Welcome back to working.

1:01.0

I'm your host, June Thomas. And I'm your other host

1:04.8

Isaac Butler. Isaac! Today we'll be hearing your fantastic interview with writer

1:10.8

Taffy Brodesser Acner whose voice we just heard. But before we get to Taffy, how are you doing this week?

1:18.0

June, I am happy to report that this morning I woke up an hour early with an anxiety dream about not meeting my book deadline.

1:25.6

So that's how I am. That's the bad news. But the good news of that happening because I remember this

1:31.6

from the world only spins forward is as you of that

1:33.0

happening, because I remember this from the world only spins forward,

1:34.0

as you close in on the end, your subconscious

1:38.0

is working harder and harder on the creative task at hand.

1:42.0

So I take that as just a sign that like, you know, the

1:45.6

nine-tenths of the brain that Douglas Adams said were filled with rooms of

1:49.2

penguins, are instead of being filled with penguins, filled with observations and ideas for the book about the method.

1:55.4

That's what I'm hoping that dream actually entails. I'm just trying to look on the bright side today.

...

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