Scrappy Little Nobody(51)
In every print interview I do, I resolve to speak as though I were writing. It lasts four minutes, tops. Without fail I feel like a pretentious douche who speaks slower than Alan Rickman, and I revert to fast-paced colloquialisms because I’d rather save face in front of this one reporter than the rest of the world. I end up reading what I said, thinking, Am I THAT bad at communication? I’m going to be a nightmare in my inevitable marriage counseling.
Print interviews are also a mindf*ck because this person is going to write up not only what you say, but how you seem as you say it, and how you seem as you pause, and how you seem as you walk in. You become so self-conscious about every mannerism, so aware of trying not to act self-aware, it can feel like you are trying to disprove a negative. Jon Ronson’s book The Psychopath Test says that if you are accused of being a psychopath, it’s incredibly difficult to prove that you aren’t one. Psychopaths are masters of mimicking healthy human behavior, so how does a real, healthy human prove that they aren’t faking it?
But here’s the thing: I am faking it. It’s an interview; the very construct is artificial. It’s a manufactured conversation. If anything, I make the mistake of buying into it more than a decent journalist ever would. Sometimes I think the writer and I are becoming friends, because they are such a good listener. (I know, guys, I’m not very bright.)
So, aren’t we both faking? And I get it, journalists; you aren’t dying to talk to every ego-bloated actor who rolls through town, you do it because it’s part of your job. You ACT thrilled about it because of the social contract, and so do I! But I’m not thrilled. We just met! I’d have to be insane to be “thrilled” to talk about myself with a perfect stranger knowing that they plan to make every word of it available to every other human on the planet.
There are some journalists I’ve known for a few years now and I always like talking to them. There are some who I meet and get along with because they are good at their job, and the fact that I feel comfortable immediately is solely a testament to them. Sometimes the ones who seem really unhappy to be there write very kind things, and the ones who seem really friendly write very passive-aggressive things. I once developed a crush on a journalist after spending less than twenty minutes with him. It wasn’t a physical thing; he was just good at his job, so I felt like we were having a good time.
Afterward I admonished myself for thinking I had a “connection” with someone who is quite literally paid to be interested in me. He described me in his piece as though I was a robot capable of turning my “press face” on and off. The interview psychopath! This was one of the rare times I’d been completely caught up in the conversation—embarrassingly so—yet I’d been accused of being a big fat faker. What are you gonna do? I guess I should be grateful he didn’t say, “Fellow journalists: beware. This dummy clearly wanted to bone me.”
Photo Shoots
For one of my first big photo shoots, the Vogue team took me to the outskirts of Brooklyn. They were putting me in a feature they do every month that’s like, Hey, you don’t know this girl yet but she’s cool. Trust us. We’re Vogue. They gave off major “cool girl” vibes, and I needed to be friends with them immediately, so when they wanted to photograph me under a bridge that had clearly been roped off, I agreed. Once we were through the layers of plastic sheeting I realized it had been shut down because of a burst pipe. A pipe of what? I guess I’ll find out if and when I develop conditions consistent with radiation poisoning.
Sometimes I like to run around photo shoots all carefree and wild, as a layer of protection. When I stay still and focus all my attention and energy on being the best little model I can be and still I get looks of disappointment and confusion because I don’t look like Kendall Jenner, it hurts my tiny feelings. (You can go your whole life as a happy, sane person, and then Kendall Jenner comes up and you wonder why you want to crawl into a hole and rot. No one should be compared to Kendall Jenner. It’s cruel and unusual.) So I run around a little. I’m not an unphotographable troll! I’m just a little scamp who’s not focused!
When I behave, I find myself in the line of fire for innocuous comments that lodge in my brain and explode like tiny, hateful pipe bombs right before I fall asleep. The photographer for one artsy magazine told me to relax my shoulders, twenty-one times. (I’d always thought my shoulders were fine.) A photographer for a men’s mag asked, “Can we lose the bra?” in a tone that felt as rhetorical as “Can you get that report on my desk by Friday?” When he saw me glance at the monitor, he said, “Don’t worry, we’ll slim out your legs.” (I’d always thought my legs were fine.)
I have one piece of advice for photographers. I know you have no reason to listen to advice from me, but please, it’s good for everyone. If you are photographing an actress, or a bride, or a recent graduate who doesn’t have the jaded, knowing sensibility of a model, please just take lots of pictures and say lots of nice things. None of you shoot on film anymore! It costs you nothing to just keep snapping away and shouting praise! It’s like teaching a little kid to hit a baseball. You don’t stand there and stare at him like, This little chump isn’t even using a regulation bat. You throw the ball and say “good job,” and eventually he hits one. That technique won’t help A-Rod improve his batting average, but I’m not A-Rod—I’m the little kid with the Styrofoam bat who can’t see ’cause the helmet’s too big.