How-To: Rescue an interview when it goes wrong
BRICKS deputy editor Maddy Reid shares her 10 practical tips for salvaging an interview when it starts to go south…
This January gave me a rare reset: I came back to the office, opened my diary, and realised our publishing schedule was… empty. It was bliss – for about five minutes, because an empty schedule never stays empty for long, and my month quickly turned into a blur of voice notes, coffee-shop interviews and Zoom calls, interviewing a vast variety of creatives for our next print issue and online content for the coming months.
Whether you’re a writer, presenter, producer, filmmaker, or anyone whose job relies on talking to people for a living, interviews are an unavoidable part of the process. They offer a change of pace and perspective to any written, audio and visual media – but they also come with a particular vulnerability. You’re relying on someone else to show up (both literally and figuratively) and meet you halfway. That trust is often placed in someone you barely know.
Most interviews go smoothly. Some even feel effortless, like chatting to your bestie. Others, however, can derail fast: the interviewee arrives late, shuts down, rushes their answers, regurgitates a press release, becomes irritated, or clearly wishes they were somewhere else entirely. Knowing how to respond in those moments is rarely taught, yet it’s as essential as writing good questions in the first place – and most of the solutions come in the preparation phase.
To help navigate those situations, BRICKS deputy editor Maddy Reid – who has interviewed everyone from Jade Thirlwall on dodgy WiFi in the back of a taxi, to Confidence Man on a post-performance comedown, a weary early-morning Declan McKenna, and countless totally un-media-trained emerging artists – has rounded up her 10 best tips for salvaging nightmare-inducing interviews and turning flat conversations into something actually usable.
