by Mario Lopez
Are there ever times when I am such a fan that I’ve gotten nervous interviewing stars? The answer is no, not in recent years. The only time I ever got really nervous to meet any celebrity was long before I was a host, when I was a kid, and I met Hulk Hogan for the first time. Hulk Hogan was an inspiration, a figure I loved and wanted to emulate all those years, so even as an adult I get a retrospective tingle when I see him. “There’s the Hulkster!” I was a Hulk-o-maniac!
I learned that what helps take away the nerves is that a host has to be a kind of expert in following the television, film, and music worlds closely. So when I’d meet all these talented individuals very much at the top of their game, I’d be prepared to be on top of mine. Some of that came naturally, but I had to master the prep work of knowing in advance what to ask, whether my questions related to biographical details or events tied to the past or to current projects.
For example, if you had the chance, what would you ask your favorite actor, rock star, or reality celebrity? In honing my approach over the years, I’ve had the thrill of getting to do that every day and have had fascinating conversations in the process. Another personal preference I’ve discovered is to try not to have interviews per se, but to have genuine conversations. So that’s where being a fan—yet also being a peer—can help. Maybe because I’ve been in front of the camera for so many years, and famous people I interview know that I grew up in the business, they treat me like one of their own. Whatever the case may be, they feel comfortable with me and, just between us, they end up divulging a lot more than they probably want to in our interviews.
For viewers, this is big value added, because that kind of approach lets the audience in on details and emotion they wouldn’t get in other interviews—unless, of course, they are being interviewed by the likes of Matt Lauer or the great Barbara Walters, who is one of the very best at encouraging celebrities to open up and be themselves.
The other hosting trait that’s a learned skill is an understanding of the clock. A celebrity, whether in the midst of promoting a movie, record, or book, has only so much time and can’t talk to everyone. Besides, nobody in entertainment has time for just shooting the breeze forever, so the job of the host is to move the conversation along in a fast, celeb-friendly, but meaningful way. Everyone appreciates the effort and it’s no accident that stars love Extra for that—which, of course, makes it that much easier when we see them at press junkets for movies, on the red carpet, or in the studio where we shoot the show daily. There are a few major entertainment shows that monopolize the airwaves, but because of the Internet and a million cable channels, there has been an onslaught of people waving around microphones, recording devices, and still photo cameras claiming they need sound bites to promote a project. Publicists for celebrities, therefore, very carefully pick and choose which host and what outlet will have the most promotional value. There are so many domestic outlets for entertainment that it can make people crazy. Not to mention all the international press they already have to do. My point is that publicists and celebrities alike love Extra—and that makes my job easy. Or shall I say, easier?
• • •
One of the frequently heard truisms in Hollywood is that the biggest stars are usually the nicest and the most gracious toward entertainment media. I’d heard that in my early part-time hosting flings but hadn’t confirmed it until I started hosting full-time. Sure enough, the A-list stars—whether I’ve met them at events or been able to interview them for Extra—are not just cool and often down-to-earth but tend to be generous with their time. Then again, they are actors, so maybe they’re acting nice. It doesn’t matter either way, does it? If they’re smart enough to fake being nice, then they deserve the good reputation. The challenge for the interviewer with the bigger stars is to learn how to be something of a psychologist and know what you have to offer them in return for their willingness to talk to you and your mic. If I can ask a question that leads a celebrity to an answer he or she has never thought about, or to tell a story that he or she loves to tell, that’s a win-win.
Earlier, in learning the hosting ropes, I was sometimes reluctant to meet the superstars I most admired for fear that they might turn out to be a jerk—and that would just crush me. How could I do my job in bringing out their best if they had just shattered the image that I’d loved about them? It did happen on a few rare occasions and I couldn’t go back to the movie or the song that I used to love. Fortunately, most of the people that I had always wanted to meet turned out to be even cooler than I’d imagined. It made me even a bigger fan when that happened.
Tom Cruise, Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Hugh Jackman, and Sandra Bullock are the epitome of genuine people who I know to be really nice too and gracious with their time. There’s a secret that I figured out after a while about how the top stars walk that fine line between holding on to their privacy yet being available for interview. How? In the most honest and masterful way they can, they will take charge of the interview. They will make you as a host/interviewer feel as special as you want to make them feel.
For example, Al Pacino. His iconic roles as Michael Corleone in The Godfather or Tony Montana in Scarface are enough to make anyone a fan, and those are only two of the films from a long list of hits throughout his career. He is more than a star and an icon in my book. Not only did he live up to my expectations, but he was the first to approach me on the red carpet.
“Hey, Mario,” he said, in his New York Italian voice as he came over to me. “How you doing?”
“Whoa,” I responded. “You know who I am?”
“Are you kidding? I loved the show you did with Dick Clark,” Al said. “The Other Half.”
“Really?” I replied. “That was years ago.”
We both laughed and I couldn’t believe it. That was a great moment in my television hosting life, that’s for sure. But as the conversation turned to him, we were conversing like old friends. An extremely warm person, he clearly didn’t carry a lot of pretense about him. Yet he made an even bigger fan out of me that day and gave me a great interview.
Another example: Cher. Let me count the ways. Cher, also an icon, is one of the most multidimensional stars to light up the world of entertainment. I admire her as an artist because she has never limited herself to only one arena. She says “Yes!” to work: from her music/variety TV show to everything she’s done as a recording artist and concert performer who is still going strong, to all of her unforgettable film roles. Like Pacino, she too came up to me at a recent event before I was set up to talk to her. In that distinct Cher voice, she casually asked, “Mario, hey, what’s up? I just saw you on HGTV. You remade your garage.”
That was hilarious. Of all the things she could have seen me on . . . HGTV turning my garage into a gym! How random. After that, Cher and I could talk about anything and everything. But that’s what the top stars do—they do their homework as well.
Then again, we all have bad days and even the most successful celebs do too. And some of the A-listers can just be jerks, although I’ve never been able to figure out why. They have so much that other people don’t have, so you’d think they should be appreciative and gracious. It’s not so much that they are rude; it’s just that if you veer ever so slightly away from their prepared talking point, they act as if you’ve violated their privacy.
Not long ago, I was interviewing a celebrity who is close with Mila Kunis and I asked something benign about whether she was happy to hear that Mila and Ashton Kutcher were having a baby. She preferred not to comment, she said sternly, responding in a way that made it seem as if I had some nerve to ask about her happiness for other celebrities. To be honest, I’ve gotten weird looks from some stars when I’ve asked questions as basic as “How’re you doing?”
Part of the problem is the time we’re living in, when every little comment can become magnified a million times over on social media. Still, a reaction of “What do you mean, how am I doing?�
�� or “Happy? You want to know if I’m happy?”—in not so many words—can be discouraging to an entertainment host.
Of course, from what I know of human nature, not all actors are outgoing and comfortable out of character. Many are shy or have real insecurities that give them the inner life from which to draw on in emotional performances. Some use their aloof intensity in building their brands. I remember thinking that about Ray Liotta when I met him at a boxing championship fight—Sergio Mora versus Peter Manfredo. I’d been sent by NBC to cover celebrities and VIPs who were there as fans of boxing. As Ray was sitting in a prime spot—next to the aisle at a corner of the ring—I asked him for a comment or two on the fight.
I’d been a huge fan of Ray Liotta from the time I was a kid and watched him in his breakout role in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas. So, naturally, I was excited to tell him that, as well as talk boxing. Ray looked at me with those intense blue eyes for less than a second and then declined, saying, “I don’t really do that kind of thing, sorry.” Sure, I understood, but it was really a simple request in a loose environment that would have endeared him not only to me and the NBC folks but to all the fight fans watching.
Let down, I felt like an autograph seeker who gets a no from a celebrity. While I know that stars, like all of us, can have bad days, Ray was, after all, having a drink and getting ready to watch an exciting fight. How bad could that be?
Along those lines, I had an eye-opening experience while attending a VIP reception that included Tiger Woods. Part of the small group in the room included Darius Rucker, the lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish, and he and I talked for a while. There were very few people in the room—not many more than fifteen—so Tiger was not inundated with fans. Because of that, one of my buddies who was there with me thought it would be easy for me to ask Tiger to let him take a picture.
I first said, “Nah, I don’t want to ask for a picture. We’re cool right here.”
But my buddy kept pushing it. He reminded me that Tiger had seen me hanging with Darius, so I could ask and not come off as a pushy fan type. Without making it a big deal, I could ask for a shot of the three of us—as would be expected in a reception like that.
Why not? I agreed and diplomatically went over to Tiger and told him how much it would mean to my friend if we took a quick picture together. I had the camera out, ready to go, with my pal standing by too. It would have taken two seconds.
Tiger thought about it and then said, “Um, you know, I really don’t feel like taking pictures right now. But tell you what—how about a handshake instead?” Really? He took longer to answer than it would have taken to just say, “Sure, take a picture, and thank you.”
For a beat, I looked back at him with confusion draped across my face. Then I just laughed and said, “Ha ha. Don’t worry about it, man. All good.”
Inside, however, I was steamed. Why was a handshake preferable to a photo? Did he think we were going to make copies and use his likeness for profit? Did he not want us to have a keepsake that would mean something? Who knows? I do know that when I turned around to walk away, I couldn’t help mumbling something aloud about what a jerk he was. Or words to that effect. No skin off my back, but that was sort of a textbook “How not to be gracious” moment. I must have told this story two hundred times.
When a short time later he was the brunt of Saturday Night Live skits and late-night TV jokes over the breakup of his marriage, I didn’t feel sorry for him, because payback’s a bitch. He lost two fans from the incident—not that he’s losing sleep over that. Still, it’s not hard for a star to fall from grace, for an abundance of reasons. There is no payoff for not being nice, bad days and needs for privacy notwithstanding.
That said, I am not paid by Extra to rate stars on their niceness or lack thereof, so as a host I have learned to roll with whatever the celebrity needs or wants. And if that star isn’t offering a friendly “Hey, Mario, I saw you hosting X Factor last night,” well, no biggie. Thick skin turns out to be very useful to a host. At press junkets I have found this to be particularly true. There is one music star, to remain nameless, who made it clear he did not want to talk to me directly—as explained to the publicist, even when I was sitting only two feet away. The nameless music star actually said, “Will you tell Mario that I want to talk about my new album?” Then the publicist would say, “Mario, he wants to talk about his new album.” Two feet away, I replied, as if I couldn’t hear him, “You got it!”
For most hosts, I’ve found, the more difficult celebs are usually in the much larger pool of those who are stuck on the middle rung of celebrity—what the industry calls the B-listers. It’s not that they’re downright rude (though they sometimes can be), but basically they treat you, the host, in a dismissive “What’s your name again?” way. The B-listers can be tough, as can the C-listers, the kind who complain at awards shows how they didn’t get their gift bag—the one that’s full of fun free swag—and then they end up leaving with three swag bags. There is also another group that has a bad rep among hosts: reality stars. Some of these newly anointed celebs have bad attitudes. You can sense their “Do you know who I am?” mentality the second they walk into the room with their unearned sense of entitlement that is often palpable. Occasionally, I have found myself thinking, Buddy, if I’m talking to you next year, man, am I going to be surprised!
The awareness that has helped put all this in perspective is that as a host, most days I can’t and don’t think of myself as a celebrity—that’s part of staying humble and grounded. There are no delusions of grandeur when the celebrities I interview are much more famous than I am. That comes from interviewing some of the biggest and most influential figures in Hollywood day in and day out. Some of the people I interview are so famous they can’t leave their homes without being hounded by fans or paparazzi. When they show up to be interviewed on Extra, they arrive laden with security and surrounded by an entourage. I have some of that, to be sure, Chula Vista–style. But in comparison, the paparazzi rarely harass me and my days are not filled with scouting safe places to go have quiet dinners. And I’m more than thankful for that.
• • •
“So you’ve got a beef with Russell Crowe?” I began, warming up for an interview with George Clooney during an awards season press junket.
Always super cool and gracious with me, Clooney is a total throwback type, a modern-day Clark Gable. I admire the fact that he’s not only a former TV actor, but he also paid his dues and didn’t really gain fame until his midthirties.
“Me? No, he’s the one with the beef,” George replied with a laugh, reminding me that Russell Crowe had called him out for being a “Frank Sinatra wannabe.”
This was one of those countless instances where research can make or break an interview. For me, research is as important as the wig. I read everything I can about the projects, the producers, directors, writers, actors, and actresses and whatever else I can find to be ready for an off-topic question during scheduled and unscheduled interviews. I research celebrities’ dating histories, their current relationship status, whether they’re single, married, just broke up, just had a baby, or “it’s complicated.” From Wikipedia to Entertainment Weekly to sports and music magazines and more serious journalistic pieces, I try to scour the Web and the newsstand to read everything I can, soak up as much information of interest as possible, put it all away, and then just have a conversation. These are usually stories already covered in the press, so if I bring them up, it’s not as if I’m gossiping. In fact, celebrities have talked to the press already and are mostly happy to give comments that maybe haven’t been reported before. If I’ve done my homework and read the information, I’ll retain it—like the story about the beef Russell Crowe had with Clooney.
“Well, what about you and Leonardo DiCaprio in Mexico?” The story I’d read had alleged that while in Mexico there was a pretty intense basketball game that Clooney and his older group of frien
ds had against DiCaprio and his younger crew. Apparently the young guns were talking trash and being a bunch of punks, so Clooney and his guys stepped it up and schooled them. “So, George, what’s the real story?”
George said, “Yeah, Leo’s buddies were being a little mouthy and show-offy.” He added that it was a lot of fun beating team DiCaprio. Clooney and the older dudes won in three games, and in one game skunked ’em eleven to zero.
Yep, research is golden—that I have learned. Without preparation, you are asking for embarrassment. As a case in point, I once went to do a one-on-one interview with Ben Affleck after missing the screening of the film he starred in. My excuse was that I’d been stuck in traffic that night because of a bad accident, so I never saw the movie. But the studio sends out screeners and I could have made the effort to watch the film, except that another series of unfortunate conflicts came up that night. Instead of being honest, I chose to wing it—read that as “fake it.”
Here is a hint about how it went: Ben Affleck is a poker player—an avid poker player—and my guess was that he would probably see right through me.
We started talking about poker, ironically. That went well, or so I told myself as I tried to play it cool, still nervous and embarrassed. With a surge of confidence, I kicked off the point of the interview by sitting down in front of him and saying, “Great job on the film!”
Ben nodded and waited for me to say what specifically I liked and then I knew he was too good a poker player to fall for that. My inner monologue could have been up in print with a thought bubble that said, “He’s reading me. He’s reading me. He can see that I’m lying!” Of course, he did a great job, but I didn’t know that because I hadn’t seen the movie. Though I forged on, asking general enough questions and hoping he might not pick up on the ruse, I wasn’t sure I pulled it off.