When conducting interviews, I rarely think about how I’m doing them other than thinking that the questions are tumbling out sounding stupid or that I’m blathering on like the dreaded Charlie Rose (an excellent example of how not to interview someone, IMO). So it’s quite an experience to have my technique analyzed by no less a personage than Lily Tomlin, who’s doing a nine-show run at MGM Grand next month:
“I loved Homicide and in the old days … you know what you make me think of? At the telephone company, if you’re a bill collector or something, they tell people, ‘You don’t say too much.’ You just respond every now and then. The person’ll keep talking til they hang themselves.’ [laughs] Is that your technique? You say, ‘Hmm. Ah. When?’ And you just keep talking. The people feel like, ‘Oh, I have to keep talking. It’s my responsibility. Or ‘I must not be saying anything that’s good,’ so they just keep talking and eventually they probably just keep talking themselves into a big hole.’ [chuckles]”
The Lily Tomlin interview will appear in the Nov. 5 issue of Las Vegas CityLife. I’m just sayin’.
“… just keep talking themselves into a big whole.”
If you were one-one hundredth the interviewer that Charlie Rose is, you’d know that she meant “a big hole”, not “whole”.