Four learnings from the late, great Sir Michael Parkinson.
That you can incorporate into your own interview or dialogue style.
Some exciting news. I’m on the road and a number of weeks into shooting a brand new TV series titled I Was Actually There. The show was created by the same team behind You Can’t Ask That. Each episode of the show focuses on a significant moment in Australian history and interviews the people who witnessed it live, unpacking what they saw and how it changed them. We’ve been capturing some incredible stories so far.
While in the midst of conducting these interviews, I’ve been thinking about the late, great Sir Michael Parkinson. Parkinson died a couple of months ago but he undeniably left his mark on the world—so I want to use this issue of Questionable Advice to explore his interviewing approach and delve into how he did what he did so effectively.
Parkinson, by his own account, interviewed in excess of 2000 guests on his BBC talk show, which ran between 1971-1982 and again between 1998-2007. His guests were the most famous people in the world: Nelson Mandela, Orson Welles, Madonna, David Attenborough, Sarah Duchess of York, David Bowie and Miss Piggy. Parkinson’s expertise was his ability to go behind the public persona of these people and allow their humanity to shine through. Whilst his reputation suggests he simply charmed his guests into opening up, it was far more than that: he challenged them, expressed concern for them, flirted with them and encouraged them to be playful. He rolled with the punches. There was an agility to how the interviews unfolded. His aim was to make interviews feel like a conversation between friends, despite being filmed in front of a live studio audience and televised to an average of 6 million viewers.
In 2003, Parkinson explained to the Sydney Morning Herald, “There are many times I do a straightforward, professional interview. Other times, when there's a real relationship, when the interview becomes conversational, intimate, when you get the impression you're eavesdropping . . . that's when it works.” When describing his work to Andrew Denton on Enough Rope he stated, “I’m fascinated by the discrepancy that I discover in the person I meet as opposed to what I would believe if I relied on the media. I’m interested. I have a low boredom threshold. I may not agree with them, but they still interest me.”
To me this demonstrates the key pillar of Parkinson’s style: open fascination.
So what to learn from Parkinson? Here are four things you can incorporate into your own interview or dialogue style:
1. Allow your guests to shine
Unlike American talk shows where the host is very much the star, Parkinson’s guests were the most important people on stage. Once his question is asked, he fades back, nods along, listens and enjoys the experience.
Celebrities are careful in the way they present themselves to the public. Parkinson’s trick, if I can call it that, is to show genuine interest in his guests. This interest helps them to relax, be honest and visibly enjoy themselves. Which means as an audience member, we get to see them wholly.
When he challenged his interviewees, it came from a thoughtful place. He prided himself on not being a tabloid journalist, asking tough questions that he felt were fair—topics already in the public arena or relevant to their work.
When Woody Allen’s reputation and box office took a massive hit after he wed his stepdaughter, in a 1999 interview, Parkinson felt justified to put it to him.
In 2007 he sat down with the recently retired Shane Warne and inquired on the relationship status with his recently divorced wife. Rather than going for a gotcha-type moment that would have put Warne on the defensive, Parkinson asked: “There’s all this speculation about you and Simone—you’re hanging out together on James Packer’s yacht. (Makes a joke). So why get divorced in the first place?”
What unfolded felt similar to the way a friend might enquire into the more intimate details of a challenging situation you’ve just navigated and Warne answered in a refreshingly considered way.
Parkinson was interested in understanding the situation rather than interrogating and that’s the key difference.
2. Preparation allows flexibility
In the limited number of times I’ve interviewed famous people, if it’s gone poorly, it’s been because I haven’t done enough research. I mostly enjoy working in the moment and asking questions off the back of what I hear. But if you’re speaking to someone with plenty of interview experience and you want to get past the pre-prepared script, you need to go deeper than the basics. Parkinson comes across very conversational, but in reality, he was very well-researched.
“It's a courtesy,” he told the SMH in 2003. “You need to have done your research in order to extract anything interesting from [your guests]. That's what you do in TV–when I walk on, I know your story, I know what I want from you.”
This doesn’t mean that there’s no space for the interview to evolve in the moment. If you’ve done your research then you’ve set yourself up to unearth something new. “It’s not rehearsed, it’s impossible to rehearse.” He explained to the hosts of Good Morning Britain in what would be his final televised interview. “I’ve read about them, I’ve thought about them and then I have a line of questioning that they agree with or not. That’s the joy of it all. The uncertainty of it all.”
Orson Welles was Parkinson’s first high-profile interview in 1971. Hoping that getting Welles would pave the way for other celebrities to trust coming on his show, he bent over backwards to get the interview. When Welles swept into the green room prior to taping, he noticed the pages of questions sitting in front of Parkinson and asked for a look. Parkinson, who admitted to slaving over getting the questions right, was also conscious of keeping the star onside so allowed him. Welles, after reading the sheets, dramatically ripped them up and pronounced, “Can I give you some advice? Let's talk.”
Parkinson noted it took him some time to learn from this experience, saying for many years he became a sort of “slave” to his set of pre-prepared questions. But once he did, his aim became to “engage in a conversation so that you can get away from that which you have planned—if it’s interesting enough!” You could lean on any number of his interviews to see this in motion, but being a David Bowie fan, I searched this out. What’s incredible is the interview begins with a quip from Parkinson on Bowie’s attire, “I’m disappointed, I was told you might appear wearing the Little Richard jacket.” The wide-reaching interaction that follows seems to evolve only from this. Was it all prepared? Who knows.
His preparation allowed him flexibility. Having done the research and knowing multiple ways into their stories, he had the freedom in the moment to run with what emerged.
3. You don’t need to like the person to do a good interview
Not liking a guest is not something you would pick from watching Parkinson’s interviews. Apart from some well-documented ones, Meg Ryan being the most famous, it was rare to see Parkinson appear to dislike a guest or rub them the wrong way.
I commonly get asked, What if you don’t like the person you’re interviewing?
Interviewing isn't about making friends. You're there to ask questions to try and understand the interviewee, to learn who they are or what they've experienced. If you don't like them or their energy, you can't let it get in the way of doing your job. Parkinson knew this:
“On a first meeting it's important not to be too judgmental,” he says. “I'm totally convinced that some people have met me on a bad day and gone away thinking I'm a miserable sod, so I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt.”
Denton asked him, “How do you deal with it when you’re not getting along with a guest, particularly someone you admire?” Parkinson answered in the simplest terms, “You just do the job, you’re there to do the job. The only difference is that it’s not as pleasant as it might have been.”
Parkinson discussed this idea in an interview with actor Ian McKellan: “With horrible people, you need to find the humanity that you can relate to. These horrible people, they’re not horrible all the time and they don’t necessarily think of themselves as horrible … If you asked them, they would think that they would be quite reasonable, or doing things for the right reasons.”
Ultimately, the type of interviewing I do has nothing to do with my personal opinions on the character of a person. It comes back to knowing what I’m trying to achieve with the interview. And what I’m trying to achieve, is find a way to unlock this person so they can show their true selves.
4. Be aware of how your reputation impacts the interview
By the time he returned to his show for a second stint in the 1990s, Parkinson was famous in his own right. It put him in a unique position. “Becoming famous changes you and it changes people's response to you. It’s a subtle thing, but a strange thing.”
Your reputation impacts the expectations your guest has of you and how the interaction will go. This may or may not be to your advantage but it’s something you have to be aware of and work with.
You Can’t Ask That has built a reputation for empathising with people or stories that others readily judge. Guests come to our set expecting to be heard and respected. I endeavour to give every person the same treatment. In the early days of the show, it was trickier to get interviewees—the premise of the show was a daunting one if you’ve lived with a label and been judged daily for it. As the show progressed, it became easier to confirm guests, but I now had to contend with people arriving with a preconceived idea of how a You Can’t Ask That guest should respond. It sometimes meant they attempted to play up to that, as opposed to just being themselves.
Parkinson’s reputation and fame influenced his guests both positively and negatively. He and his show had a reputation as a place where honest interactions happen whilst being taken care of in the process, so guests came prepared for that. On the flip side, Parkinson reported that at times guests started treating him in the same stand-off-ish or awestruck way that came with being a celebrity, so he had to work hard against that.
This is true of any person—your reputation dictates the sort of interaction that people will offer up. The further I go into my career the more I’m aware of this: that my reputation allows me the opportunity to have people speak to me openly. They know what to expect. They understand the care I will take with their story.
The question to ask yourself is: What is your reputation? Is your reputation one where people feel that interactions with you will be honest, respectful, humourous? Or superficial or intimidating or judgemental?
While watching and reading a number of Parkinson's interviews for this issue (him as both interviewer and guest), over several decades, what consistently shone through was that Parkinson didn’t have all the answers. He made mistakes as an interviewer. His technique had to change with his age and the times. His philosophy on his interactions progressed. He learnt by doing it over and over again. What didn't waiver was his interest and the knowledge that at the end of the day, all he was doing was having a real interaction with another human.
If you have a question or an idea about the interview process you’d like me to explore, email me at kirk@dockermedia.com.au.
‘Til next time,
Kirk
Kirk Docker is the co-creator and director of award winning TV show You Can’t Ask That. When it comes to the content he creates, no subject is off-limits. Kirk’s interviewees range from ex-politicians to ice users to sexual assault survivors. He has a deep curiosity, compassion and playfulness that elicits honesty from his participants, many of whom have never sat in front of a camera before.
Find out more about Kirk at kirkdocker.com. Connect with him on LinkedIn.