what a way to choke on coffee
 |
| anne hathaway, les miserables |
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| ricky lo, showbiz commenter |
if i was somebody from the philippine showbiz industry or a friend of ricky lo’s, i’d also probably call anne hathaway a bitch. it’s called loyalty around here. if i was hathaway i’d probably be thinking, “who is this guy and why is he even doing interviews?” for somebody like me who has made no psychological, physical and emotional investment in the showbiz circle since birth, i’m thinking, lo didn’t do his homework and should work more on his speech.
in a recent
interview with anne hathaway, veteran showbiz commenter ricky lo was at the
receiving end of hathaway’s forthright answers leaving him a bit flustered in
front of the camera. he’d probably never get that from a local celebrity
because getting an interview with him means you just got a shot at stardom.
being asked very personal questions is the norm and interviewers never get a
“no” or “i will not answer that” from people in the philippine showbiz
industry.
the first 20 seconds
of the interview was already off-putting with lo asking hathaway how she lost
25 lbs. ooops. any filipino actor would have no problem answering that question
and would even be glad to divulge the nitty-gritty details if it’s the wish of
the interviewer.
so what went
wrong?
lo would not be the
one to offend any actor because he has decades of experience under his name and
whatever flub he made in those four minutes was obviously not a conscious
effort. what filipino interviewer would have the audacity to do that to an
international star anyway? but there are
so many ways for an interview to go wrong. based on experience and observation,
starting off on the wrong foot goes a long way, and the boat will not stop
rocking unless as an interviewer you make a colossal redemption of yourself or
counteractively ease an agitated interviewee.
unfortunately in the
case of lo’s interview with hathaway, it ended with what to me was a lampooning
“why don’t you invite them? i think they’d rather much hear it from you” when
lo asked hathaway to invite her fans. when he also asked her for her message
for lea salonga, hathaway said, “oh, we already talked about that.”
again, i’m sure lo
meant well when he asked hathaway how she identified with her character in les
miserable. when hathaway expressed confusion over the question, lo explained
further by asking her if she ever had “an experience to be hungry, to be poor…”
to that, hathaway curtly answered, “that’s a very personal question.”
lo’s questions were somehow fair and valid, but the manner of asking, what with his limitations in the
english language, turned it into a disaster of sorts.
if say, lo asked
that question to a filipino actor, we know we’d be treated to a historical
account of what life was like prior to showbiz and specifically what it was
like being poor. what could be a better human interest story anyway?
the interview was a
thorny four minutes that made me cringe in so many places. oh well, my coffee did
taste a bit funny this morning.
