In defense of Hugh Grant (and not wanting to answer stupid interviews)

Photo: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

You must have seen about two minutes of the interview with Hugh Grant on the Oscars red carpet. they write: Embarrassing, embarrassing, the most controversial interview at the Academy Awards. They say Grant is rude, that you don’t, and that questions are answered politely. I think Hugh Grant was great, more than that: he’s absolutely right. And me I am Ashley Graham – But I’ll get to that in a moment.

So, for those who slept through Sunday night and yesterday morning preferred to be grumpy from Elie Schlein cartoons: the nominees and guests of the Oscars evening arrive on the red carpet; They are also interviewed by Ashley Graham on ABC, which is broadcast live, and is a model by profession. The stars arrive and they all say the same things: What a great movie year I’ve had, I’m so excited, I wear Spectra costumesetc.

Hugh Grant arrives, who – we will find out later – is there to present an award with his colleague Four weddings and a funeral Andie Macdowell (another fun moment) and he doesn’t have much to say. Graham asks the usual questions: “Are you having fun?” (Answer: “more or less”); “What are you going to wear tonight?” (“my dress”); Did you enjoy acting? glass onion? (“Bah, I’m practically nonexistent, you can see me for three seconds”).

Then there is the best moment. Grant, sums up evenings like this well.that it Vanity Fair’, which is to say Thackeray’s narration, an easy quote that no more should get away with. Instead, Graham commented, nodding his head with conviction: “We are all here for Vanity Fair’, meaning the newspaper, ‘This is where we let ourselves go a bit and can finally have fun’, meaning the usual party after party organized by the newspaper itself.

Since then, on social media, the morality cops and the victim have all focused on how bad Hugh is and how harassed Ashley is, no one has noticed this passage, perhaps the most important. Interviewing means preparing yourself for any kind of response, Sazi, a day that started on the wrong foot, I didn’t want to put on this blessed dress and stay here. -my-do- pictures, ask me a clever question, everything. Interviewing, above all, means arriving prepared. You don’t need that much: you only need to read two books.

(No one noticed, in parentheses, the other more beautiful thing, that we were inside a piece of meta-cinema: Hugh Grant suddenly went the other way, and suddenly turned into the star the reporter had met from Horses and hunting dogs.)

In an era when everyone interviews everyone — there have always been more interviews than people interviewed in the world, but with Instagram Live, it definitely got worse — Grant is putting careers back in place. And if your objection is, “Well, but he was also there to do his job, and his job also includes giving red carpet interviews,” I say yes, that’s right. But refusing to give a stupid interview is sometimes another sign of professionalism.

I’m you Ashley. Not because I’m a millionaire supermodel (oh no?), but because I’ve been interviewing people on the red carpet for a few years now. It’s something I really enjoy and (I hope) most of my interviewees will (even those who probably don’t know they’ve become memes, thanks: Kate, a missed Oscar is kind of an Oscar I missed too). But to be criticized, in party dress, in front of a guy in a double-breasted pink suit who asks you things about, well: I understand they don’t always feel like it.

In particular, there was an actress so famous you could tell she didn’t want to be there (the difference being that she was presenting one of her films at a film festival, she wasn’t passing or nearly looking like Hugh Grant). He gave telegraphed replies, was clearly eager to leave, at one point made the excuse “I’m going to say goodbye to the fans now because there are no more barriers against Covid and we can all go back to hugging each other”, and I – which for a moment felt like a victim of Hollywood stars Just like you, Ashley – I thought she was right, and I let her go. In fact, I would have said to her, “Right now, I’d also like to drink a spritz and have a mouthful of cod.” in a party Vanity Fairnaturally.