Marc Pachter has conducted live interviews with some of the most intriguing characters in recent American history as part of a remarkable series created for the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. He reveals the secret to a great interview and shares extraordinary stories of talking with Steve Martin, Clare Booth Luce and more.
Excerpts:
'...I wanted interviews that were different. I wanted to be, as I later thought of it, empathic, which is to say, to feel what they wanted to say and to be an agent of their self-revelation... you want energy, you want the life force, but you really want them also to think that they have a story worth sharing. The worst interviews that you can ever have are with people who are modest. Never ever get up on a stage with somebody who's modest...But it comes down, in the end, to how do you get through all the barriers we have. All of us are public and private beings, and if all you're going to get from the interviewee is their public self, there's no point in it...The key point was empathy because everybody in their lives is really waiting for people to ask them questions, so that they can be truthful about who they are and how they became what they are..'
*It gets difficult to phrase questions when you know you have to be sensitive, It made me apologetic (which is not at all good)*
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