When David Marchese took over the New York Times Magazine's Talk column in 2019, he had already been interviewing celebrities for several years, first for Spin Magazine and then for New York Magazine. When I hired him, I called him “one of the most prolific and profound interviewers in the country.” But I couldn't imagine what he would do on the talk. In his hands, the already established and respected Q and A transformed into something beautiful, hilarious, and certainly profound. Now he has released his final talk – a conversation with actor Jeremy Strong. But don't worry. But that doesn't mean David will back out of the interview. In fact, he plans to introduce a new interview series in late April called The Interview. David will be joined in this effort by another highly talented journalist, Lulu Garcia-Navarro. Every week, one of them will have a conversation with a fascinating person, and the content will be published in the magazine or online. Also As a podcast. (This means that instead of reading David doing his best John Malkovich impression to John Malkovich, you can read that and Listen!) To celebrate David's accomplishments, I recently sat down to interview him. This was a somewhat scary job, but it was also a lot of fun.
you once Said The first questions you ask in an interview are more about revealing your personality than getting great answers. So I'd like to ask you something that might reveal something about your personality. As the interviewer, you typically take the initiative, prepare well, plan the conversation, and drive the conversation. You're running the show. So I was curious how you would react if you were in a situation like this. do not have In control. So how do you answer? My biggest concern is that I don't think it will turn out like Utz. It's true that answering questions is more stressful than asking them.
What did the waiter do? The waiter said something like “Yes, isn't that enough?” I think Reed shrugged his shoulders and left it at that, but I'm not sure what he thought of the shaved parmesan. Maybe it needed to be broken into smaller pieces? I don't know.
Let me ask you about a few different categories of people. You've had a lot of great encounters with actors over the years. Is there a way to generalize about what actors are like, or are there different patterns in interviews with actors than we experience in interviews with musicians or novelists? Luckily, the actors I talk to are actors that I'm genuinely interested in. What I'm interested in is their personalities and how their individuality is reflected in their work. So I think what I'm trying to do when interviewing actors is to just show their personality, which is more pronounced than other types of subjects. There were interviews with Nicolas Cage, interviews with Nicole Kidman, or what I really liked was Shirley MacLaine, a very sassy broad. Also, many famous actors are charismatic and fun to talk to. That's part of the fun.
Have any interviews with musicians revealed something about their music that you didn't understand before? You know, I think it's more likely that something close to the opposite will happen, oddly enough. It means that after talking to the musician, the magic powder will disappear a little.
Maybe for your new best friend? Even to my new rock star best friend. He sent me a text like, “You should come to the show.” Then I made an excuse for not being able to go, but it was a blatant excuse. And I knew right away, he must know. And it happened that in his text response he had 3 dots disappear. After that, it was just a cursory response like, oh, I'm sorry, we won't be able to make it in time. And I never had contact with that man again.
That's a very sad story. You hurt this rock star's feelings. Perhaps it's good for them sometimes.
It feels as if you're trying to find out something about the world and how to live in it. It comes out clearly in some interviews, like the so-called interviews. the happiest man in the world or hospice nurse. But your questions include how to be a good person, how to care for those around you, how to grieve; There is an undercurrent that suggests that the author is using these interviews to try to answer questions about grief, how to grieve, how to grieve, how to grieve, and how to be a better person. is common. Coping with the stress of devastating times. These themes come up again and again. That tendency you're identifying is partially related to the answer I gave earlier, but it's more about my own curiosity. However, the fundamental question is why It's making me more and more curious. To be honest, the answer has a lot to do with getting older and experiencing more life. When you have children, your questions about the world change. And clearly there are bigger events happening in the world that raise questions about goodness and what it means to be human in this world. It's happening in parallel to the questions I'm asking in my own life. I often interview people who I feel can speak to fundamental questions that I think concern not only myself, but many others as well. I mean, if it were just me, I'd probably ask more questions about amp repair or something.
How do you think that affects your thinking? In other jobs, I paid very close attention to traffic, which always pushed my thinking in more mercenary and less creative directions. In my experience, the joy you get when you succeed in a car accident is dwarfed by the anxiety you get from a car accident. But that's an aside. Everything about climate confirms that our world is acting completely insane regarding the climate crisis.
Are you susceptible to climate change? It's not even ruin. I think that's climate realism. What we are directly looking at is a very grim and negative future. And not enough is being done to mitigate the worst. I think it's better to be alive than not to be alive. In that sense, I wouldn't necessarily call it a disaster. But it gets worse.that teeth bad. And all these people I talked to confirmed that.
got it. Let me ask you some personal questions. I think your readers, colleagues, and subjects will see you as someone who has a real talent for talking to people. And it's 100% true. However, we know that this is not always the case. The ability to not only find ways to open up to others, but also have to find ways to open up ourselves, is something we develop over time. Can you talk about that? Yes, we can talk about that. There was definitely a time at a fairly low point in my life when even the thought of talking to people I didn't yet know was depressingly daunting. I didn't have to lead discussions or give presentations, so I was skipping classes at university. I'm not going to raise my hand and say anything.
And is this a fear of public speaking? Oh, it's bigger than that. It sounds stupid, but I had really low self-esteem at the time. I didn't want others to register my existence. I know that people around the world are facing hardships. In the scheme of things, it wasn't that bad. But it's still a little hard to wrap my head around knowing that that's who I used to be, and that I now have a job where I basically talk to strangers at length in public. I feel like my life has taken a fun and unpredictable path.
Do you think that you used to have a hard time being able to converse as freely as you do now, but now you can do it as well? I don't know if I thought specifically from that perspective. I take seriously the idea of conversation, even if it's light-hearted. And that includes both me and the person I'm talking to.
Let me ask you one more personal question. This is a pretty deep cut, but in your opinion, emma chamberlain interviewyou mentioned that you were suspended from school and couldn't go to prom. Yeah.
When this came up in an interview with Emma Chamberlain, I think she said it was symbolic. Now that I know the whole story, I agree. So, some final questions. I've been doing this for so long that some of the people I've interviewed have passed away. In such a case, do you go read the interviews you conducted with them? I think the most important thing is that I felt a more immediate sense of sadness that I wouldn't have felt if I hadn't interviewed that person. The most poignant case for me in which someone died after I interviewed an economist named Herman Daly who talked about how the idea of infinite growth was ecologically unsustainable and irrational. I'm telling you what it is. Although he was well known in his field, he was by no means a celebrity. It cannot be said that he is necessarily famous as an economist. After the article was published, he sent me a really nice note saying how happy he was to talk about his ideas in the New York Times at the end of his career. He died three or four months after the interview. And I was happy to have the opportunity to talk to him about an idea that meant so much to him.
What about behind the scenes? I think it happens all the time that interesting people die around the world and you think, “Oh, I really wish I'd interviewed them.” Who is on that list? It's a bit of a sick practice. There are some people who I know will never be interviewed.
you're right. This is a sick practice. So, can you say a little bit about what you're going to do next? Talk is being retired, but is being replaced by something that is very similar to Talk but very different. There will be a podcast of each interview and you will be co-hosting this entire project with Lulu. I'm concerned about the audio part. You have very intimate encounters with people. Interestingly, what we read is a record, so the intimacy of the moment with the subject remains secret, but it's not exactly the same as being in that room. But “The Interview” is going to be the kind of thing that brings people into the room completely. What's an example of an interview you've done in the past five years that you wish had had audio? A few years ago, I interviewed comedian Jerrod Carmichael. At the time, he had just come out, but it seemed like he was burning with a desire to express who he was. And I think that really came through in the timbre of his voice. It would have been really cool if people heard that. Or Nicole Kidman. I thought there was a hint of playful provocation in her voice. Oh, you know what was great? When I interviewed Bono, at one point he started singing a new U2 song.of course Audio would have been great.
We talked earlier about your theory about the first interview question. Do you have a theory about that last question? You're trying to end with some kind of answer that agrees with the larger theme of the interview. But as I take over this story, and as a final answer to this interview, I think when I look back at the people I've had the pleasure of speaking with, I can say that it's been a huge gift for me as a human being. yeah. It was unbelievable.And it was a real adventure to be able to share that with people who might be interested. and gift.