how to become a celebrity journalist

becomeacelebrityjournalist.com

Table of contents

Who am I and why are you listening to me? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Can people with zero experience as a celebrity journalist really do this? Can they really interview movie stars? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

How does celebrity journalism work? Why do celebrities even talk to journalists? How are the interviews between celebrities and journalists organized? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

How do people start? Whats the first step? How do I convince an entertainment magazine, website, TV or radio station to let me interview stars? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

What comes next? Befriending the publicists. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

What is a movie junket? What is a round table interview? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

What inside tips do I use to get the most out of a junket? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

How do you get personal quotes out of celebrities? How to ask the best questions to get the best answers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

How do I ask questions in a 1-1 interview? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

What should I do at a press conference? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

How do I get access to red carpet events? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

How do I act at a red carpet event? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

What can I expect to be paid for a celebrity interview? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

What final tips do I need to know to start my celebrity journalism career? . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

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1. Who am I and why are you listening to me?

Im an Australian journalist who has lived in Los Angeles since 2003.

When I moved to LA, I had zero celebrity journalism experience. But fast forward to today 6.5 years later - and Ive now interviewed pretty much all of the worlds top movie stars.

Ive sat down and interviewed the likes of Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Jennifer Aniston, Nicole Kidman, Matthew McConoughey, Russell Crowe, Jamie Foxx, Beyonce, Jon Bon Jovi and Leonardo DiCaprio to name a few.

Ive interviewed those stars for newspapers and magazines all over the world. In America, Ive written for People, US Weekly, In Touch, Star and OK. Ive been a regular radio guest on the number one breakfast program in New York City, The Scott and Todd In The Morning on WPLJ. Ive produced weekly entertainment reports for Q104 FM in Cleveland.

In Australia Ive written for all the top magazines and newspapers including Ralph, Womens Day, New Idea, Sydney Morning Herald. And in the UK, Ive written stories and done celebrity interviews for Cosmopolitan, Loaded, Now, Closer, Grazia, More, The Sun, News of the World, Daily Mirror and The Mail on Sunday. Ive also done celebrity interviews for magazines in Dubai and South Africa.

I mean Ive pretty much covered most of the worlds top media. Ive also travelled the world with my job. Ive attended and covered six Sundance Film Festivals in Park City, Utah. Ive covered six Toronto Film Festivals. Ive been to Cannes in France to cover the Cannes Film Festival. Ive also attended the red carpet for a host of celebrity events including the Golden Globes, Oscars, MTV Movie Awards.

Ive done it all - and Im not even that good as a journalist!

2. Can people with zero experience as a celebrity journalist really do this? Can they really interview movie stars?

I had zero celebrity journalism experience when I started in 2003. In fact, when I arrived at LA I knew nobody. Not a sole. I spent the first two months sleeping in the Hermosa Beach hostel at $15 a night while working as a laborer on a jobsite in Bel Air with a bunch of non-English speaking Mexican laborers.

But in the 3rd month, I did my first ever celebrity interview the great Jack Nicholson. Jack was promoting the Adam Sandler comedy, Anger Management, of which he was a co-star. I went from a laborer on a job site to the penthouse suite of the LErmitage Hotel in Beverly Hills interviewing a two-time Oscar winner.

So trust me when I tell you, it can be done. Anyone can have a similar journey to the one I have had. As far fetched as you may think it sounds right now, you too can sit in a hotel room with the likes of Nicholson, Angelina Jolie and Brad

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Pitt. You, too, can interview the worlds top stars.

So lets get started

3. How does celebrity journalism work? Why do celebrities even talk to journalists? How are the interviews between celebrities and journalists organized?

Yes! The point I want to get across to you is that yes, you too can do this.

It works like this. In the film world, movie studios including 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Disney, Warner Brothers, etc. produce films. About two months before a film is released in movie theaters around the world, these studios will attempt to generate as much publicity about the production as possible.

The marketing and PR teams of these movie studios launch million-dollar campaigns to get stories about their films and its stars written about in newspapers and magazines and talked about on radio and TV. They want the US Weeklys and The Suns and the Entertainment Tonights and Access Hollywoods to generate a buzz about their films.

So these movie studio marketing departments make the stars available for interviewing by journalists. The studios publicists are hoping that millions of people around the world will read a story about their film or see a TV story and then in turn be sufficiently inspired enough to visit the movie theater and pay their $10 for a ticket. In this way the publicists need the journalists to write about their stars and their films.

The more people that read the stories that the journalists write, the better they are likely to know the film is in theaters; the more they are going to go out and buy a movie ticket.

Secondly the stars need the journalists to build up their star power. The more publicity actors or actresses generates, the better money they can command from studios for future roles and the more commercial opportunities come their way. For example, Tom Cruise didnt start out making US$20 million per movie. He probably started out making $20,000 on a movie. But the more people wrote about him, the more people knew who he was, the better his salary went up. After a few years, he could command $1 million, then $2 million, all the way up to today where its closer to US$20 million.

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Finally, the journalists need the publicists to grant them interviews with the stars. The bigger the star you can put in your magazine or on your TV show, obviously the more people are going to buy that magazine or watch that TV show. So everyone needs everyone else. Journalists need publicists, publicists need stars and stars need journalists.

Let me illustrate further how the game works. Have you ever walked by a news agent and seen a dozen or so magazines with various Hollywood stars on the front covers?

Lets take a recent film for example, The Hangover. It was one of 2009s biggest films and made more than US$400 million at the worldwide box office. What you probably didnt particularly notice at the time was that in the weeks leading up to The Hangovers theatrical release, there were dozens of interviews about the films stars in the worlds media. Heather Graham interviews were published in mostly womens magazines and Bradley Cooper interviews could be found in mostly mens magazines. You may remember watching your local entertainment TV show and seeing either one of these stars interviewed. These print interviews and TV appearances dont happen by accident. These interviews were done at an official movie junket (which well explain fully later) over one weekend in Los Angeles.

I know this because I attended The Hangover junket. I interviewed Bradley Cooper and Heather Graham in a fancy suite at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills. So about a month before The Hangover was released worldwide, I had lobbied successfully the Warner Bros. film studio publicists to grant me access to Heather Graham and Bradley Cooper. I sat down with both of these stars for separate 20 minute 1-1 interviews. A month later, my interview with Cooper was published in OK! and Ralph magazines in Australia and Loaded magazine in the UK. My magazine editors who ran my interviews were thrilled because they got a great interview with Cooper, who would go on to become one of the biggest male stars of the year. And the Warner Bros. publicists were happy because The Hangover was promoted in those publications and they knew that meant hundreds of thousands to millions of readers would now potentially be spending their money on a The Hangover movie ticket.

So that gives you a brief overview as to just how the game works. Publicists need the journalists, journalists need the publicists, the stars need the journalists and the journalists need the stars.

That is how the celebrity journalism game is played.

4. How do people start? Whats the first step? How do I convince an entertainment magazine, website, TV or radio station to let me interview stars?

The very first step is introducing yourself to a newspaper or magazine or a TV show or radio program and convincing them that you are the best person to interview the worlds top stars for them.

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It sounds difficult doesnt it? Well, trust me when I say it really isnt. Now Im not suggesting we are only trying to convince these media organizations to hire you fulltime. In todays economic climate a lot of media organizations arent hiring, theyre firing. What I am saying is you can have a very successful career as a freelance journalist doing this. You can convince these media organizations to hire you on a freelance basis at worst.

Let me tell you the story of how I did it

I was living in London when I flew to LA in 2003. About a week before I got on the plane, I decided in my mind that I was going to try to become a celebrity journalist. LA is filled with celebrities, right? It seems like the most logical place in the world to be a celebrity journalist. But I didnt have any contacts out there or know anyone in the game. So I picked up a London Yellow Pages in my Putney house, and cold called the publicity departments of the London offices of Warner Brothers, Sony, Fox, Paramount, Universal and Disney.

Some of you are probably thinking, Hang on! You said the first step was to convince media organizations to hire me. Yes, it is. But first of all you need to know which media organizations are most likely going to listen to you. The publicists of these movie studios are the ones who are going to tell you. So I called up the PR and marketing departments of the London offices of Warner Bros, Fox, Paramount, Universal and Disney.

My conversation literally went like this

Hello, my name is James Swanwick and Im going to live in Los Angeles next week and interview movie stars for UK publications. May I come, see someone there to discuss?

Only one publicist Sonys Anna Whelan - agreed to meet with me face to face. The next day, I caught the London underground to the Sony offices in Soho Square and sat down with Anna Whelan. I asked her in what publications in the UK did she want to generate more publicity of Sony films. She told me she wanted to see more press about Sony films in mens magazines. There were many men-friendly movies that were not being covered adequately in the mens magazine market in the UK. Now by mens magazines I mean your FHMs, Maxim, the kind of magazine that is read by your 18 to 25 year old guy, a guy who likes scantily clad women and fast cars and all the good stuff. Now the 18 to 25 year old group of men loves big action movies, they love the Rambos, gross-out humor comedies. So I went to a newsagent and browsed through a dozen mens magazines. On the contact page of each magazine, I wrote down the phone number and names of the features editors, editors, deputy editors anyone who worked in editorial.

I then literally sat in a park in London with my mobile phone and just called them. I called them all - Loaded, Front, TNT and Arena and tried to convince

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them to meet with me. When I phoned Loaded magazine and asked to be put through to the editorial team, then features editor Duncan Baizley answered the phone.

Me: My name is James Swanwick and Im going to live in Los Angeles next week and interview movie stars for UK publications. Would you like me to interview movie stars for Loaded? May I come see you to discuss?

Him: No, were OK. We buy our interviews in. Thanks anyway.

Me: May I come and just introduce myself to you in person at your office, just for 5 minutes?

Him: No, thats not necessary. Send me your CV and well be in touch.

I knew then he would never be in touch. I had to get a face to face meeting.

Me: Duncan, let me just pop across town right now, drop off my CV, shake your hand and then Ill be off. Just give me 30 seconds.

Him: OK, then. 30 seconds. Be here in an hour.

I raced across the London subway line to the IPC offices in London, went upstairs, handed Duncan my CV, shook his hand and ended up talking to him for 30 minutes. Never underestimate just how important it is to get face time. People will rarely hire you or work with you if they dont see you in person. At the end of our chat, there was no promise of work. There was no job. There was nothing concrete at all. All there was an initial introduction. But that was everything. I continued to meet as many publicists as I could of as many magazines as I could before leaving.

Below are actual email exchanges between me and a couple of the movie studios. This will show you just how hard I worked to get face time you can practically smell my desperation.

To: Liz Green at Fox Studios

james swanwick 03/11/03 12:10pm

Hi Liz.

Please, please, please meet with me for one minute before I fly to LA on Friday.

I know you are extremely busy but I fear you will struggle to remember me if you dont meet me in person.

I am currently on board with Loaded, Front, TNT, Face and Arena magazines as well as the Evening Standard.

Many thanks,

James Swanwick

And her reply

Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 06:58:09 -0800

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From:To: Subject: Re:

Hi James,

If youre in Soho on Thursday, let me know and we can hopefully meet up briefly before you fly off on Friday.

best regards

And this to the Disney publicist, Phil Cairns.

-----Original Message-----From: james swanwick [mailto:] Sent: 05 March 2003 17:05To: Subject:

Hi Phil.

I spoke with you earlier today and left a message on your phone. To explain further, Im a journalist of ten years about to move to LA permanently.

I will be writing various film and entertainment stories for UK magazines and newspapers including Front, Loaded, Maxim, TNT and the London Evening Standard.

I spoke with you on the phone a couple of weeks ago to find out who I needed to speak to at Disney about organizing interviews in LA and being considered for junkets.

You suggested I mail through some clippings of my previous articles.

I was phoning to see if I could drop off my articles in person to you or whoever the relevant person is. I am free most of Friday. I hope this explains the situation as the message I left on your phone probably sounded a little strange!

Regards,

James Swanwick

And his reply.

Subject: RE: Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 17:17:32 +0000From: To:

James - as per our previous conversation, in the middle of our busiest period of the year at the moment,

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so please just send this stuff into us, together with details of how to get hold of you and when youre going to be out there from, for when youre in LA.

Well have a look at them + be in touch when we have anything we think might be suitable If youre sending hard copies, address as follows:

Best of luck with it,

Phil

Two weeks later I was living in the Hermosa Beach hostel and had just landed the job working with the Mexicans on the Bel Air job site. I had never done physical labor in my life but the US$75 cash a day I earned kept me busy and paid for my hostel rent. When I returned from working one day, I put a $1 note in one of those archaic internet machines in the lobby of the hostel, which gave you 7 minutes of internet time. I logged onto my hotmail account.

This is when my life changed and the doors to Hollywood and celebrity opened to me. There was an email from Anna Whelan, the Sony publicist I had met in London just a couple of weeks earlier.

In the subject line read: Jack Nicholson interview. Anna told me that the Adam Sandler comedy film Anger Management was being released soon and did I want to interview its co-star Jack Nicholson for Loaded? I emailed Loadeds Duncan Baizley something along the lines of, Remember me? Well, I have been offered an interview with Jack Nicholson? Do you want me to interview him for Loaded? Duncan would later tell me he almost fell off his chair with excitement when he read my email. Jack Nicholson was exactly the type of star Loaded readers wanted to read about. And so it was that on Sunday, March 30, 2003I was dropped off at the LErmitage Hotel in Beverly Hills by my friend (I still didnt have a car) to interview the great Jack Nicholson.

The moral of the story is this. With a bit of hustle, with a bit of thinking outside of the box, you can get what you want. I knew nothing about celebrity journalism. But I picked up the phone and rang the press departments of movie studios. Only one of them took a meeting with me. But in that meeting, I learned which magazines they wanted their films and stars publicized. From there, I cold-called magazines. That led to Loaded magazine and later Jack Nicholson. I would end up working with Loaded magazine for six years, in which I interviewed everyone from Brad Pitt to John Travolta.

My good friend Brad Blanks was an accountant in Sydney when he visited New York City for a friends wedding in 2000. Hed never interviewed anyone

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in his life but dreamed of one day being a celebrity journalist. He picked up the phone book and phoned every New York radio station telling them he was going to be their Sydney Olympics correspondent. Most laughed at him, others hung up on him. One radio station, PLJ, invited him into the studio and interviewed him for the job live on air. Two months later he was back in Sydney doing live crosses to the Scott and Todd in The Morning radio team on PLJ. Nine years later, Brad Blanks is one of the shows leading personalities. Visit bradblanks.com.

The point is this: you dont need experience as a writer or an interviewer to land these jobs. You dont need a fancy CV or resume. All you need is some hustle and the ability to present yourself in person and show people you can do the job. I knew nothing about celebrity journalism but I picked up the phone and rang the press departments of movie studios. Only one of them took a meeting with me initially but in that meeting I learned in which magazines they wanted their films and stars publicized. From there I cold called the magazines and that led me to Loaded and that then later led me to Jack Nicholson. My celebrity journalism career had started. Now your career can start, too.

5. What comes next? Befriending the publicists.

Youve done the hard work. Youve convinced a media organization to at the very least consider you.

The next step is convincing publicists to let you interview their stars. Remember the golden rulealways befriend the publicist. The publicists are the gatekeepers of Hollywood. Theyre the ones who ultimately are going to grant or deny you access to the worlds biggest stars.

So, if youve followed the plan, youve already introduced yourself to a dozen different media organizations. Now you need to introduce yourself to the movie studio publicists. So now you need to cold call Sony, Paramount, Fox - all the major movie studios and say this or a variation of this:

Hi, my name is John Smith, and I am going to be doing celebrity interviews for [insert publication or media organization here]. Can you please tell me what interview opportunities are coming up at movie junkets soon?

Now some publicists may be unwilling to help you given theyve never heard of you before. If this is the case, dont be discouraged. The next publicist at the next studio wont be unwilling. The goal here is to simply get you known amongst the publicists.

Next, visit a great industry website called, www.HollywoodBytes.com junkets. Visit that website and youll find a comprehensive list of every upcoming movie junket, the names of the movie studios producing them, and which stars are in each film. With this information (garnered from either the website or the publicists direct) go back to the magazine or TV show or radio station youve already courted. Tell them the film, the stars, the studio and the junket date. Then suggest you do the junket for them. Should it be a film of interest or

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star an actor or actress of interest, the media organization will tell you if it would like you to cover it or not.

Lets say that so far everything has gone to plan and the media organization wants you to cover the junket. Now you go back to the publicists (yes, we call them back again)and you tell them the following:

My magazine would definitely promote [insert film here] if I could interview [insert stars name here]. Would you like coverage of your film in [insert media organization]? If so, I am available to attend the [insert film name here] junket and generate press for your film and any of its stars.

If the answer is no, dont worry. Keep asking all the publicists until the answer is yes. There are usually two or three junkets every weekend in Los Angeles or New York. If you do 25 percent of them throughout the course of the year, you are doing great, believe me. If the answer is yes, guess what? In a few weeks time, youll be sitting in a fancy hotel room with some of Hollywoods biggest stars.

Now, if you currently dont live in Los Angeles or New York, or you currently live outside of the US, dont worry. You can still do this. If youre outside of the US, phone the press departments of the local offices. If you live in Denmark, phone the Sony office in Denmark. If you live in Sweden, phone the Warner Bros office in Sweden. If you live in Australia, phone the Sydney offices of the movie studios. When you call, ask to be put through to the PR and marketing team. These studios have huge budgets for press. If they think you will generate enough press for their movies, theyll think nothing of flying you business class across the world to the US and put you up in a fancy 5-star hotel. I always run into journalists at junkets who live in Brazil and Mexico and France and Italy who have been flown in for a three-day trip to the US. They love it.

If you live in the US, its even easier for the studios to fly you to LA or NY. So to summarize, its really a combination of courting a media organization and then courting the publicists. It really isnt as scary as you may think it seems. The hardest part is simply picking up the phone and making the call.

6. What is a movie junket? What is a round table interview?

A movie junket is where movie stars sit with select members of the press,

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mostly in LA or New York, a week or so before the movie opens.

The press is invited to a hotel like The Four Seasons in Beverly Hills where members will sit for up to two hours and interview the director, the producer and the stars. The TV press and print and online press are divided into two separate groups by the movie studios which set up each junket. TV reporters are allowed up to six minutes to interview each of the films talent while print and radio

journalists get up to 20 minutes.

These interviews mostly take place in a roundtable format and sometimes a 1-1. A roundtable interview is where anywhere between three and eight journalists sit around a roundtable and interview a star together.

So a journalist will walk into a hotel room, sit down at the roundtable. The movie studio publicists will bring in the talent one by one. Youll sit there with your tape recorder and interview each star for 20 minutes. In other rooms on the same floor, the same thing is going on with another set of journalists at a round table and another star. At the end of 20 minutes the publicist comes in and says, Time or Thats all we have time for. Thank you. Each of the stars will get up and be shepherded into the next room with another roundtable. And it just keeps going until youve interviewed everyone. It is just like a well-oiled machine. Its clinical. 20 minutes. Bang! Its over. Next interview. 20 minutes. Bang! Its over. Next interview. You record each interview and later transcribe it, and then write up your story. Weeks or months later, depending on the films release or a magazines publication date, your story will appear in print.

So while most newspapers and magazines claim they bring you an exclusive interview with the star, the fact is most interviews you read in any magazine or newspaper are from roundtable interviews at movie junkets. Its a free-for-all for any of the 5 journalists sitting at the table. Any answers to your questions that the stars give, any of the 4 or 5 journalists sitting around the table can use in their interviews. But likewise, if one of the other journalists ask a great question and gets a great answer, you can use that quote in your own article. Now a lot of times the five journalists sitting around the roundtable wont be from the same country. If Im covering for an English magazine, the publicists will ensure I sit with journalists from non-competing countries like Australia, France, Mexico and Brazil. They wont put two or three English journalists together.

What that means is that I then have those quotes exclusively to the UK

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market; the Mexican journalist has those quotes exclusive to the Mexican market and so on. So even though you have five different journalists there, you can publish your quote and claim theyre exclusive in your particular country. It works both ways.

Thats why its always important if you can to try and get a 1-1 interview. That way you own the quotes and no one else in the world will have those quotes. Theyll never appear anywhere else except in the publication you choose to have it published in. After youve become friendly with the publicists, you will hopefully be able to on occasion get 1-1 interviews. But initially, 1-1 interviews are dependent on how well you know the publicist or how much publicity they think your outlet will generate for their film. For example, if its a junket for a serious, Oscar-worthy film, and you write for a film magazine, you will be more likely to get a 1-1 interview. The publicist knows youre going to talk only about the film and youre going to promote that film in a film magazine. If its a movie like The Hangover, for example, which is kind of slapstick comedy, I landed a 1-1 interview with Bradley Cooper for mens magazine, Loaded in the UK. Warner Bros. knew that if I got a 20-minute 1-1 interview with Cooper, I would generate a great story which would in turn promote The Hangover to the magazines readers.

7. What inside tips do I use to get the most out of a junket?

The best inside tip that I have is dont fight with the other journalists. Walk in, sit at the roundtable and introduce yourself to the other journalist. I always walk in and say, Hi everyone. Im James and Im here with Loaded magazine in England. Who are you here with? Whats your name? Great! Good to meet you. Look, I know you guys have to ask your questions but Im really interested in this particular star and my magazine wants me to ask these particular questions. Is it OK if you give me time to ask those questions? Usually the other journalists will be fine with this and usually another journalist will say to me, Thats a great question and I want to know that as well.

You go ahead and ask that question. Youll be helping me out, too, if you do ask it. There may be a film magazine journalist there who says, Im only interested in what the star says about making the movie or working with the director. My magazines arent really interested in that type of seemingly boring content.

But in this situation you would tell the journalist, No problem. Go ahead and ask that question. But let me ask my personal questions first and Ill throw it to you for your question right afterwards. So before the first star has even walked in, youre already working as a team. Too many journalists walk into roundtables, sit there and dont say anything to the other journalists. Then the stars walk in and they find themselves in a battle with other journalists trying to get their questions answered. Me, I walk in and make friends with the other journalists. I tell them what I want to ask and I ask them what they want to ask. And when Tom Cruise finally comes in and sits down people arent yelling and screaming at him. Its very calm and very structured and every single one of those five or six journalists sitting there gets what he

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wants. So you work as a team rather than work against one another.

8. How do you get personal quotes out of celebrities? How to ask the best questions to get the best answers.

Often before an interview begins, a publicist will announce, No personal questions! Now we all roll our eyes at this because lets face it, all we want to ask are personal questions. Nobody really cares about how Angelina Jolie found working with the director on a particular film. Nobody really cares.

Most people want to know what its like sleeping with Brad Pitt, how she balances her family life with six children and her career. They want to know inside details of her personal life. But you cant come out and say to her, Right! How do you raise your six children Angelina? The publicists who are listening in adjacent will likely say, Interview over! I told you no personal questions. But there is a trick to avoiding this scenario while still generating personal quotes from her. And that is to always relate the question back to the movie shes promoting.

Let me give you an example. In the movie Changeling, Angelina Jolie plays the mother of a boy who is missing, presumed kidnapped. As a journalist, youre not going to sit there and ask Angelina Jolie, What would you do if your children were kidnapped? That question is too blunt, too direct. Instead you would ask the question like this, Angelina, in the movie Changeling you play the mother of a boy who was kidnapped. Being a mother yourself, how did that help you play this character? This was a question I asked myself. She then went on for the next ten minutes about her children, her family life and gave a real insight into her personal world. So you get this inside look into a stars personal life by disguising the question as if its relating to the movie.

Eric Bana is an Australian actor who was in the movie Troy and more recently in Funny People with Seth Rogan and Adam Sandler. Eric Bana is notorious for never talking about his children or his wife. Hes very guarded. I interviewed him for the movie Funny People in 2009. I didnt ask him, So Eric, hows your family? Tell me about your children. What are their names? How old are they? I knew if I did that he wouldnt talk to me and he would instantly be defensive. But in the movie, Funny People, Bana plays a father who is having marital problems with

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his wife and how they are raising their children. So when I interviewed him for Funny People I asked him, What aspects of being a father in real life helped you play this character of a father with small children? Because I disguised this as a film-related question, Bana then went on for the next five minutes to talk about his children. It was five of the best minutes of quotes from Bana about his personal life that you could ever read. I didnt ask him directly about his children. I disguised my question as film-related and got quotes about his children anyway. That interview ended up being published in one of Australias leading womens magazines. Because Bana talked extensively about his family and kids for the first time, the magazine promoted my interview heavily.

About four years ago I was on the Washington, DC set of the movie, The Sentinel, starring Keifer Sutherland, Michael Douglas and Eva Longoria. At the time Eva Longoria had only started dating the basketball player Tony Parker. She would later go on to marry him but at the time she hadnt really spoken much about him. Even though I was on set to interview her about The Sentinel, she was already a big star from the TV series, Desperate Housewives. I knew beforehand I really needed to get her to talk about Tony Parker because no one had really heard her say anything about him before. I knew when I sat down with her I wasnt going to come out and say right away, Tell me about your romance with Tony Parker. Instead, I said, In Desperate Housewives, your character plays a little bit of vixen who uses her sexy looks to try and seduce men. Have you ever used any of those tips yourself to grab a man? I asked it with a smirk on my face, too, just to lighten the mood. I never once mentioned Tony Parker. But guess what? Eva Longoria spent the next 5 minutes talking about how she seduced Tony Parker. She talked about meeting him in the locker room of the San Antonio Spurs basketball team with her father present, what she said to him, what he said to her, their first date to how they were now in love. She gave me this great insight into their love life and I didnt even ask her about it. I drew on one of her characters and disguised the question as being somehow film or TV show-related. Half an hour later I interviewed Michael Douglas in his trailer. I wanted to ask him about the fact that Catherine Zeta Jones, his wife, is probably about 20 years younger than him. Michael Douglas is getting on a bit now but still has a striking wife. I didnt say, How the hell did an old fart like you bag a classy lady like Catherine Zeta Jones who is 20 years younger than you? Instead, I said: In the movie The Sentinel, your character is considerably older than your lover played by Kim Bassinger. Youre also considerably older than your beautiful wife, Michael. Did that help you play this role, did age ever come into it? Michael Douglas then gave me great quotes about how he met

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Catherine Zeta Jones, how they dealt with the age issue.

So you always link your questions to the film. More often than not youre going to get really good personal juicy quotes, which is what every reader wants. No one cares what it was like making the film with the director or what they ate on set each day. No one really cares. What they want to know is the juicy private details. If you follow these small tips, youll get the juicy details youre looking for.

9. How do I ask questions in a 1-1 interview?

If you have a 1-1 interview, you have time on your side to ask great questions and get great answers. There are no other journalists to interrupt. Its just you and the star. But how do you ensure you get along well with the star? How do ensure you are both working together to finish with the best interview?

Well, the first thing you do is build immediate rapport. I do this by walking into the room and right away being super friendly. I compliment them on the film and maybe make a little joke about something I liked. If Im interviewing a man, I may make a man-related joke like, How hot is your co-star? Man, that must have been tough working with her all day! Its just a simple little ice-breaker to let the stars know youre on their side. If its a woman and Im interviewing her for a womans magazine, Ill immediately make a joke about the irony of a 30-something straight man having to ask her about womens-related issues such as beauty regimes and diets. I always get little ice-breaking laughs from these two openers. Remember, youre trying to make them feel as comfortable as possible. If theyre comfortable and relaxed with you, the more likely you are to get great quotes. When I interviewed Seth Rogan for Funny People, I knew I could approach him from a lads lad point of view. We are of similar age and I like his humor. So I felt comfortable asking him about his marijuana use and he felt comfortable enough with me to talk about it. I walked straight in, cracked a joke, connected with him right away and went into a

great interview. Matthew McConaughey once opened up to me about the time he was arrested by police for playing the bongos naked. I asked Paul Walker, the star of Into the Blue and Fast and the Furious, about his favorite sexual position. Because Id built up a great rapport with him, he told me. The readers of that interview loved it!

Another tip if you have a 1-1 interview, is to tell the stars what kind of magazine youre writing for. You dont have time to

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do this in a roundtable because there are all the other journalists fighting for questions. But in a 1-1, you can say to the star, Look, Im writing for a mens magazine like Loaded or FHM, Maxim and they love scantily clad women, fast cars and love their stars to drink lots of booze and be a little rough around the edges. When I ask you questions, would you please give me rough around the edges answers? Can you tell me crazy stories? Feel free to swear. I dont need bland answers. And more often theyre not, theyre fine with it. They then go on to give me exactly the quotes I need.

I interviewed Jamie Foxx for the film, Ray, where he played Ray Charles. The magazine I was doing it for just wanted to know about his dance moves and how he seduces women. Because I had a 1-1 interview with Foxx, I told him exactly what I needed from our interview. I explained that I worked for a mens magazine and wanted to know really cool stuff like his dance moves and how he seduces women. He started laughing and said, OK, cool. Lets do it. So I asked him those questions and he gave me those answers. At one point Foxx started waffling on about the film and I had to stop him. Thats great, Jamie, but Ive already got enough stuff about the film. Can we go back to the other stuff? He said, Yeah, OK. No problem. Now for a womens magazine, its the same. If youre writing for a womans magazine and talking to a female star you tell them, Look, I need quotes from you about your favorite moisturizer, what diets youre into, how you exercise.

The questions Im going to ask a woman are going to be different from the questions Ill ask a man. I interviewed Jessica Simpson on the set of The Dukes of Hazard in Baton Rouge in Louisiana. I said to her, I need answers about your body issues and your skin because the readers of my magazine are really interested in how beautiful you are and how you come to be that way. Because I explained that to her, she was happy to give me those kinds of quotes.

10. What should I do at a press conference?

Press conferences are evil and the worst possible thing for a journalist. Never do press conferences. Instead of the five or so other journalists on a roundtable, at a press conference youre fighting with 50. You have online journalists, newspaper journalists, magazine journalists and literally you cannot get exclusive quotes. And the thing is at a press conference youll barely get a chance to ask one question. If youre lucky youll get to ask one question and the answer theyre going to give you 50 other journalists are going to have those same quotes.

I promise you within two or three hours of the end of that press conference, those quotes will be on online sites all over the world. All it takes is for one journalist to transcribe the interview, put it on his/her website or put it onto an online media organization and once its out there other websites around the world see the quotes and they steal the quotes. And within two or three days that press conference will have been in about 200 to 300 magazines or newspapers or online sites around the world.

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So youll get invited to press conferences by publicists who want you to promote their films. If you want to attend for the experience, go ahead. But you wont be able to commercialize that interview at all because within three hours the quotes will be all over the world and not sellable. I hate press conferences and I would encourage you to avoid them like the plague.

11. How do I get access to red carpet events?

It goes back to an earlier lesson: befriend the publicists. Contact them all the time. Email or phone them and ask when a red carpet event is approaching. Find out when the MTV Video Awards are on, find out who the press and marketing team is of that particular show, phone them up and ask them how you get accredited for the red carpet. How do I get accredited? What is the deadline for applying for accreditation? Call up movie studios and ask when the next movie premiere red carpet is. How do I get on the red carpet? What do I need to do? When the awards season is on in Los Angeles and you want to go to an Oscars party, find out which publicists are promoting that event. So you really have to talk to all the publicists all the time. You really have to be talking to them and asking them questions.

There are also a couple of really good online sources for finding out when celebrity party and events are on. There is also a great online resource for finding out what celebrity events are on and when. Its www.newscalendar.com/ where youll be able to find out how to get a daily calendar of all the top events taking place in LA and New York that day as well as a huge list of upcoming events. This will tell you what publicists are handling what event. Contact them two to four weeks before the event is on to give yourself the best chance of being accredited.

12. How do I act at a red carpet event?

If youre on a red carpet, you can usually use the same formula for interview success as youll use on a roundtable. Youre usually standing next to four or five other print journalists who are all trying to get their questions in. At red carpets, there are photographers screaming at the stars and fans screaming in the background. So its easy for stars not to stop and be interviewed by you. Often, theyll ignore you and simply walk into the premiere.

So again, make friends with the journalists around you. If youre there as a print journalist for US Weekly and there is another journalist there for a French or German or Australian magazine, pair up with them and ask the questions tougher.

That way you can use your quotes that you get for your particular country and they can use their quotes for their particular country. If youre working for People you dont want to be next to a guy from US Weekly or In Touch because

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you need exclusive quotes. So you have to get there and realize what journalists are around you, you have to separate yourself from the competing ones and move together with non-competing ones.

13. What can I expect to be paid for a celebrity interview?As a freelance journalist, what you are paid varies from what publication you write for to what country youre writing for. It can range from as little as US$200 to as high as US$20,000 dollars. In the US, most celebrity interviews will probably sell for between US$750 and US$2000, depending on who the star is and how badly a particular magazine wants an interview with that star. The really good exclusive interviews can sell up to US$20,000.

The UK is where you will make a lot of money. There is a very competitive tabloid newspaper market in the UK and when you sell to England, you can make pounds, which is one of the strongest currencies in the world. I sold an interview to the News of the World newspaper in the UK once for 15,000 pounds, which was about US$40,000 at the time. Ive sold stories there for as little as 50 to 100 pounds. So it really does vary. Some journalists sell their interviews many times in many countries. Even if you have only done one interview with one star, some journalists sell it up to six times. They may sell it once to a US magazine, once to a UK newspaper, once to an Australian, once to a French, Norwegian, Spanish magazine etcThis is where you can make good money for doing one interview.

For example, a journalist will be approved by a publicist, will be granted access to the movie junket, will interview the movie star and will then give it to the magazine theyve been approved for. Now that is the only magazine that that journalist is allowed to give that interview to. However, a lot of journalists have then sold that same interview to different publications all over the world in a bid to make extra money. Now are you really allowed to do it in the strict sense of the rules of a movie junket? No youre not. Do many journalists do it anyway? Yes they do. The key obviously is just getting the access in the first place, getting the publicist to officially approve you for the junket, sitting down and doing the interview. Thereafter then you can try and sell it to different publications around the world and make extra money.

Do I recommend you do it? No. But will you likely do it anyway? Probably.Youll have to make up your own mind as to whether you decide to do this or not. Remember, the publicists will ban you if youre caught doing this. And if that happens, you wont get access to celebrities in the future. Make whatever decision is right for you.


14. What final tips do I need to know to start my celebrity journalism career?

The secret is you have to pick up the phone and call the media organization, you have to call the publicists, you have to make yourself known.

Its as simple as that. This is not just for the celebrity journalism world; it goes for every facet in life. That is if you want to do something, if you want to make something happen, you just have to begin. You just have to hustle.

I had no celebrity journalism experience at all. I picked up the phone and called publicists and magazines. I found myself in this tremendous celebrity world interviewing some of the worlds top movie stars and music stars. If you think the Hollywood celebrity game is a million miles away from where you are now, its not. Its close. If you use all the tips Ive given you then you can do it too. You really can.

Now go and do it! The celebrity world awaits you! Good luck!!

James Swanwickbecomeacelebrityjournalist.com

how to become a celebrity journalist

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