The (unrefined) art of the unobtrusive yet inquisitive interview

How to try, and sometimes fail, to encourage honesty from an interviewee

Profile writing is both a precise skill, to be learnt and honed, and an elusive art form. Figuring out the best ways to connect with interviewees – many of whom arrive with their guard up – and persuading them to open up without overstepping the mark, is a delicate process.

Some take less persuading than others. For example, when The Japanese House’s Amber Bain told me, “Sometimes I feel like I need to be chained to a wall to stop me from drinking”, it was the result of very little prompting on my part. Elsewhere, the trick is to pick up on when an interviewee has more to divulge. When I interviewed Mission: Impossible star Rebecca Ferguson, she talked about walking off a set with a male director (something she’d never spoken about before). She was initially vague about the reason why, but when she had finished speaking, I asked, “Did you manage to resolve it?” “I did,” she said. “We walked onto set, a hand slipped onto my arse, I hit it off, and I said, ‘Don’t ever f***ing touch me again.’ And he never did.” Had I not asked that inquisitive but unobtrusive follow-up, she likely wouldn’t have gone that far.

When I spoke to Marvel actor Tessa Thompson last year, she hadn’t discussed her sexuality since a Net-a-Porter profile made headlines six months earlier. I had been advised that she didn’t want to talk about her sexuality again. But in the course of our conversation, sensing that I was not out to get a salacious “scoop”, Thompson opened up of her own accord about being labelled “bisexual”. “I never said that word, because I don’t think in those binaries,” she said. “I feel like that’s important to say, just for me – but I have had a lot of people say, ‘That’s my experience and you really set me free’.” This is what we want from an interview – to give the subject the chance to say what they want to say and to clarify any misconceptions, while also servicing any reader who might be looking for insight, guidance or inspiration.