One of the perks of working in a place like The Times is that you often find yourself in the elevator with fascinating people: writers, editors, politicians, Jay-Z. Very quickly, though, those elevator rides can result in small talk disaster — as our elevator system is very, very slow.

We decided to take advantage of that time to bring you a new summer series, the Elevator Interview, where we’ll rapid-fire questions at a few of our favorite Times writers and editors to find out how they get it done.

First up: Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Times Magazine staff writer, celebrity profiler extraordinaire and author of the new book, Fleishman Is in Trouble.

How do you start your mornings?



Taffy: I start and end my day watching television. I wish I could say something more inspiring, but I have a ritual, where I wake up at 5:30 and incentivize my kids that if they do, too, we can watch an episode of something. Then I go through the day knowing I’ve spent quality time with my children (it’s quality no matter what, but you can also choose cultural artifacts like, say, the Rocky movies, that have value currency to them) and I’ve done something that is just for myself (which is both spend morning time that isn’t adversarial with my children and watched something good).

Do you have a secret to getting inside your subjects’ heads?

I think it’s as simple as good research, a lot of thinking, really surrounding yourself in the person’s output, and then the ability to look at a person through the prism of humanity and kindness. I also am a big believer in taking control of a story, meaning not just yielding to the quotes someone gave me and putting them in some kind of order. I think stories have character arcs and beginnings and middles and ends — I learned about how effective those things are in film school. At its core, a good story is a question asked in the beginning that’s been satisfied to the end. If you find the essential question of someone’s life, you can usually determine the person’s answer over the course of an interview. That’s all I ever want out of a story.