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Drew Barrymore may not be Jeremy Paxman, but her interview technique is becoming just as famous. The actress and television personality developed her own distinctive interrogation style as host of the CBS show The Drew Barrymore Show — and it involves a lot of breathless hand-holding. A particularly touching interview with Oprah Winfrey and a recent romance with Kamala Harris are among the more surprising examples — not necessarily inappropriate, just really, uncomfortably intense. It’s an approach that some fans have even deemed “creepy.” This week, Barrymore suggested she would try to tone down her intimate, touchy-feely approach to interviews, explaining: “I guess a lot of people say, ‘You’re too touchy’ about me. Talk about shame and embarrassment. I’m horrified when I hear that, and yet I can’t stop.” But Barrymore needn’t worry. In the joyless content carousel that is the American talk show circuit, being a little intense is a minor offense.
The fact is that the entire American talk-show scene is in the throes of what might be called a silent crisis. Once a go-to forum for celebrity interviews, it has now become a gathering place for showbiz banalities. Perhaps the most conspicuous presence is that of ex-Saturday night live Jimmy Fallon, performer (and corpse extraordinaire). The low points of Fallon’s 10 years as host of Tonight’s show The show’s most infamous moments include the time he interviewed Donald Trump before his presidency, affectionately ruffling the real estate mogul’s hair. Or in January 2022, when Fallon talked to Paris Hilton about their respective “Bad Ape” NFTs (no, me neither), a segment that was as nauseating and venal as it was awkward. But if Fallon is particularly woeful, the other big talk show actors—Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers—all rot on the same vine of sycophancy and blandness.
This isn’t really the fault of individual presenters, but rather a systemic degradation brought about by the age of internet content. Talk shows are now designed in such a way that they can be broken down into digestible three- to eight-minute segments, which are then shared on YouTube in the hope of going viral. (This pathology is, of course, everywhere now—from podcasts to presidential debates—but talk shows are among the most cynical to embrace it.) It’s a format that prevents in-depth, quality interviews, one that encourages only the most superficial, “clickable” interactions with celebrity guests. It’s a decline in ambition that has also taken root in the UK, in series such as The Graham Norton Show and the dusty Jonathan Ross Show. The Graham Norton Show is, to be fair, particularly adept at creating these viral moments, thanks in large part to the clever decision to squash dissonant celebrities onto the same couch and let them bounce off each other. How else would Lady Gaga come face to face with EastEnders“June Brown, if not by the ancient alchemy of The Graham Norton Show?
The problem with the modern talk show archetype is that it almost feels fake. The talk show circuit is essentially a form of advertising: 99 times out of 100, a celebrity appears only to promote their new movie, album, or skin-care line. It’s inevitable and it’s nothing new, but it’s spawned a generation of interviewers who are absolutely unwilling to show teeth—or even gum—for fear of upsetting companies. The promotional aspect has always been a necessary evil, but with Hollywood’s ever-expanding infrastructure of publicists, managers, and agents wielding more control than ever before, we’re increasingly left with docile, useless interviewers led with a sneering banter. It’s all well and good, all the time—even if inflammatory media reports tell us otherwise. (Fallon and the now-retired Ellen DeGeneres are among the TV hosts who have survived allegations of a “toxic work environment.”)
As a Brit, I find it infuriating to absorb so much bland, pointless and shameless advertising content, coming to us directly from the United States. There was a time, not so long ago, when the American talk show circuit was virtually alien to the UK. Johnny Carson Tonight’s show (1962-1992) was a major force in American pop culture, but a total obscurity here – the same goes for Dick Cavett. After that, David Letterman was the man who reinvented late-night television, infusing it with a lightness that Carson didn’t have. But he, too, simply wasn’t a thing (At least in the public eye: British television executives have repeatedly tried to “Lettermanize” the British talk-show scene, via ill-fated series hosted by hosts like Danny Baker and Johnny Vaughan.) We had our own talk-show legacy, of course, one that revolved around the stalwart Michael Parkinson, whose meaty, substantive interviews (from Muhammad Ali to Orson Welles to Tom Cruise) bear little resemblance to those seen on British or American television today. One of the dispiriting aspects of the current British talk-show framework is how closely it seeks to mimic the American one. It was once a genuine art form, a format where celebrities were actually exposed and interviewed, rather than merely announced.
Of course, not every interview can be a Paxman-style interrogation: it would be as grueling for the audience as it would be for the participants. But we watch interviews in the hope of seeing something revealing in them. What is it like to spend 20 minutes in the company of an exceptional person? At present, modern talk shows are not equipped to answer this question. At some point, the balance of power between interviewer and interviewee has shifted, and the model of an entire programme has been shattered.
So what’s the future of the talk show? Earlier this year, John Mulaney’s anarchic six-episode live show Everyone is in Los Angeles presented a different take on the format — but one that is surely too scattered and niche to sustain for a season. It is perhaps telling that Letterman continued to conduct interviews after hanging up his Late Show coat in 2015 – only now he directs them for Netflix, and they’re an hour long each. (Interviewed on My next guest needs no introduction. (They feature Will Smith, Robert Downey Jr., and Kanye West.) Television needs more interviews like these: long, in-depth, and honest. Interviews filmed to be watched in their entirety, not as two-minute TikToks. Until talk shows start looking for something deeper, the question of whether a host like Barrymore is too “touchy” or not is moot.
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