Celebrity profiles sometimes are dismissed as “fluff,” but I always try to go deeper than that — and nothing better prepared me for interviewing politicians and other public figures. The goal is the same: to get the subject to go off script, to say something new and authentic, and to respond to the questions you actually asked — not just the ones they want you to ask. Here are some of my favorites.
MARIE CLAIRE
Nicole Kidman Makes Her Mark
On-screen, Kidman’s empathy seems to border on telepathy. There’s something almost supernatural about how she embodies her characters. As she puts it, “I get to live my life, but I get to go into other people’s lives too. They’re transient, but I absolutely live those lives.”
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Nothing’s Stopping Scarlett
“Just because I’m the top-grossing actress of all time does not mean I’m the highest paid. I’ve had to fight for everything that I have.”
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PARADE
4 Legends of the Ice Chat About Their Best Olympic Memories and Life Off the Rink
“I think what sets skaters apart is we have to get up a lot. We fall down all the time, and we get up. If anything is following me from my skating career into my life, it’s the getting up.” —Scott Hamilton
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Look Who’s Back! New Kids on the Block, 98 Degrees, and Boyz II Men
“We’re the best-kept really big secret going right now,” says [Donnie] Wahlberg, wearing a Red Sox cap and stretching out on a sofa in the Celtics’ locker room at the TD Garden in Boston, a few hours before a show. “We are a successful small business. It’s us and our customers. The more satisfied our fans are, the more satisfied we are.”
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Katy Perry Celebrates Her Independence
Perry is proud of the fact that she’s “a bit weirder than the average pop star,” as she puts it.
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PREMIERE
Women in Hollywood: Sofia Coppola
“People just kind of accept that’s my style: I’m not marching around with a megaphone or anything, but I can still be heard.”
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Women in Hollywood: Patricia Clarkson
A human recorder of subhuman behavior, Clarkson tends to express herself through gestures, glances, and syllables loaded with feeling (ach and oy are favorites). Here’s Clarkson describing her approach to acting: “I’m not a rehearser. I just like to be. The less you say to me, the less you poke and prod me, ‘Pmm-pmm-pmm . . .’ ” She jabs the air with her finger, squinting one eye.
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Sea Schtick: Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
Back at Bar Pitti, Anderson is inhaling a piece of tiramisu. Literally. Somehow, the topmost layer of grated chocolate has entered the innermost reaches of the director’s nasal passages, resulting in a wheezy cough.
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ALLURE
Waiting to Exhale: Mariah Carey
Imagine if Aladdin, Tinkerbell, and Liberace threw a slumber party in Barbie’s Dream House. That’s what it feels like to be inside Carey’s penthouse, only with an open bar.
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The Comfort Zone: Jennifer Aniston
“I don’t like [the pressure] that people put on me, on women — that you’ve failed yourself as a female because you haven’t procreated. I don’t think it’s fair. You may not have a child come out of your vagina, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t mothering — dogs, friends, friends’ children.”
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Behind the Smile: Julia Roberts
People act a little funny around Julia Roberts. Waiters helicopter over her, eager to please — absolutely-consider-it-done-my-pleasure. Whole families gawk. Every once in a while, brave fans summon the nerve to approach her.
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A New League: Victoria Beckham
For all her talk about wanting to avoid the spotlight, Victoria Beckham’s favorite subject still seems to be, well, Victoria Beckham. You get the sense that you could turn on the recorder, ask her one question about herself, and leave the room, and two hours later she would still be talking.
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The Lopez Effect: Jennifer Lopez
“I was always like, ‘I can do anything. Just get me in the room; do me a favor. Then I’ll make it happen on my own’… It’s not that you get every audition, but you make fans along the way.”
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The Face: Kate Moss
Some artists work with paint, some work with clay, and some work with Kate Moss.
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Jessica Alba Wants to Make You Over
“I’m building a business around health and wellness, and it’s a real social-injustice and human-health issue. That’s what I’m trying to tackle, and because the government won’t safeguard our families, companies have to.”
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In Full Bloom: Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore loves a project. And I’m wearing her latest one on my face.
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Fast Forward: Chloë Grace Moretz
“My mom has overcome so much in her life. She makes me want to stand up for myself. Stand up to the studio heads who try to tell me that I can’t have blonde hair; they want brown hair. Or I need bigger boobs, or I need to work out. Or I’m too skinny, so, like, ‘Eat a cheeseburger.’ I stand up for myself every day of my life.”
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Starting Over: Kim Kardashian
“I made a vow I’m not going to wear makeup…for two months,” Kardashian says solemnly, over lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel. “No lashes, no glam, no heels. I said, ‘I just want to be me.’”
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The Showgirl: Zooey Deschanel
“I think to be able to work as an actor, you have to accept your persona. If you don’t, you suffer, because you’re always trying to step outside of the thing that people first see in you.”
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The Last Showgirl: Catherine Zeta-Jones
Before she was a movie star with four homes around the world, an Oscar, a Douglas, and a diamond engagement ring the size of a small glacier, Catherine Zeta-Jones was, believe it or not, a little girl; a little girl from the tiny fishing town of Mumbles, Wales, who dreamed of meeting the most beautiful woman in the world, Elizabeth Taylor.
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The Star Next Door: Sarah Jessica Parker
“Am I the unsexiest woman, like, in the world?” Sarah Jessica Parker wonders aloud, her girlish voice tapering into an incredulous squeak. “My God — I’m the unsexiest woman in the world!” That, Parker says, was her reaction when she learned that Maxim magazine had anointed her the Unsexiest Woman Alive.
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Song of Herself: Beyoncé
“I don’t need Sasha Fierce anymore, because I’ve grown, and I’m now able to merge the two. I want people to see me. I want people to see who I am.”
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(Copyright © Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Originally published in Allure. Reprinted by permission. For more of Brooke’s work, visit Allure’s archive here.)