Acting wacky: Why have Hollywood press tours gotten so weird? | film

TIn his summer, we’ve been blessed with new films from legendary director Steven Spielberg and one of his greatest and beloved successors, Christopher Nolan. In both cases, the films sold heavily with the directors’ names on them, and as befits two of the most famous filmmakers of all time, Spielberg and Nolan made the press tours. This means a wealth of interviews and insights – an added bonus that unfolds alongside the actual film sales that will delight film nerds the world over.

So, initially, when I watched a 60-second video of Christopher Nolan answering the barrage of yes-or-no questions coming through my social media, I of course stopped and watched a popular (if clearly still passionate) filmmaker attempt some spontaneity without the risk of follow-up questions (or committing to follow-up answers). From this, there is a lot of information that can be gleaned: he has no plans to retire, similar to Tarantino. He will never make another superhero movie or TV show. It’s fine with people watching movies on their phones or laptops. He will neither confirm nor deny that Interstellar is his favorite among his films. He will also neither confirm nor deny his desire to produce a Star Wars film. (Perhaps even more interesting, since you’d rather expect an emphatic “no.”)

But after the flow of information receded, there came a feeling of deep emptiness. One of the world’s most beloved filmmakers talks to a kid on a channel called Back2FilmSchool? And come to think of it, hasn’t he answered all these questions before, in more detail? He looks like quite a good sport on video, but then, many brave hostages would probably come away with similar composure, not to mention those who can remain calm in the face of inconvenience. A great interview may involve some friction, but it probably won’t leave you wondering if the person is really upset about the whole thing, or simply half-smiling politely. Why do so many press tours these days suddenly seem like the halfway point between TikTok and a cult’s humiliation ritual?

Now, not every Nolan or Spielberg interview includes such punitive time limits or tricky hooks. In fact, if you don’t want to watch Nolan’s interview on 60 Seconds, he had a segment on 60 Minutes (technically only 13 minutes, and sadly the version of the show run by the eminently incompetent Barry Weiss, but, you know, still a big draw). Throughout the history of film merchandising, stars and filmmakers have engaged in a range of interviews, to a range of outlets, with a range of detail or seriousness.

But this year especially, it’s not even the TikTok theme in many interviews that seems so uniform — as mentioned, you can find extra-long counterparts to balance out minute-long takes. What’s becoming more prevalent is what an older person might call the “Fallon” of the press, where a high-profile cast sits down not for an interview, but for a series of games. If you look at the LADBible website, for example, you might assume that it probably doesn’t record interviews with Matt Damon or Anne Hathaway. (As someone who has occasionally arranged interviews with people less famous than Damon or Hathaway, and with websites not even called LADBible, I can assure you that this assumption would be perfectly reasonable.) And it’s not — not really. However, under the guise of promoting their excellent film, they are hosting a “Would You Rather” tour being distributed on YouTube featuring some of the biggest stars in the world. Follow their channel for stars giving impromptu reviews and talking snacks. Anne Hathaway in particular will play countless of these games in a single year when she appears in five films; She actually logged time with the LADs for The Devil Wears Prada 2 earlier this summer.

It makes sense that people would enjoy these things in their original formats: TikTok, YouTube, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, etc. Fallon may often be insufferable, but his update of Jay Leno’s Tonight Show dispensed with a lot of the canned interview anecdotes and storylines, all of which are as tired as Celebrity Twister Trivia or whatever it may sound like now. What, is Fallon suddenly going to be a sharp, unpredictable interviewer at his age? That would be great, but it’s not happening.

But as “Fallon” and broader social video trends feed off each other, they threaten to create hybrid franchises that are less fun and more complex, floating free from the comfortable confines of a reality TV show. In a way, The Tonight Show is able to do that too, by creating content that doesn’t actually include Fallon himself (although that probably makes sense; why create even a moment of suggestion that Jimmy Fallon might appear in your adaptation of a literary classic?). One recurring bit is a rhythmic, almost cheerful, all-star plot recap, in which celebrities do a cutesy, Fallon-approved quasi-rap based on short phrases and quick couplets, strung together to form some rudimentary but forced rhymes about the project at hand. This even erases the novelty of seeing Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, and Lupita Nyong’o interact, no matter how superficially, or even watching them at any length on their own. It’s a minute-long clip by design, so you can get small doses of famous faces, and read the clips. Have you really convinced a single person to see The Odyssey? Publicists will no doubt claim that awareness of the film, rather than a specific desire to see it, is what helps these clips. Meanwhile, attentive viewers can study the screen to see who looks really good at it and who looks like they’re thinking about poisoning themselves or their clients.

And look, forced bashing of celebrities and belittlement of artists will likely always have a place in the promotional cycle. But the sheer volume of it, at a time when popular publications staffed by people who really enjoy and are good at interviewing are bought, sold and destroyed on a regular basis, can seem particularly overbearing – one more triumphal axis following another video axis rendering writers out of work in favor of off-screen prompts.

Of course, viewers can’t be expected to think of journalists when they enjoy celebrities messing around. I’m a journalist, and I don’t think about journalists when I watch literally any video that features a bunch of Saturday Night Live cast members doing anything together. But what viewers might be thinking is why they’re watching Jon Bernthal and Charlize Theron grimace through a Fallon-sponsored set of stupid rhymes. We’ve all had moments of regret about why we clicked on videos online; I would humbly point out that honest interviews, while not always as revealing as you hope, rarely produce those sinking feelings. Meanwhile, studios are moving toward making some of the most famous faces and revered creative minds in entertainment unlikely mascots of endless regret.