As marketing pundits never tire of telling us, attention is everything. If you manage to attract attention in any form, it’s likely you’ll eventually find yourself being interviewed.

In many creative and business circles, it’s startling just how excruciatingly bad many of us are at dealing with these encounters. Our collective understanding of the press in particular is an ongoing mish-mash of mixed messages and mangled misperceptions.

I’m going to focus on interviews for the purposes of this piece, as the core skills you need in that situation translate across to pretty much any form of media you might encounter. Also my experience centres on the games industry, but if you substitute “game” for “product” wherever it slips in, you’ll probably find that some of this applies irrespective of your field.

So, here’s some things to bear in mind when chatting to a journalist…

Journalists are not the Enemy (99.9% of the time)

Between the foaming idiocy of GamerGate, the moral hyperflexion of the Gawker era and the grotesquely blossoming authoritarianism of recent times, journalists have received flak from all directions. They are either depicted as being in cahoots with their subjects or out to take them down via libellous “hit pieces”. Unsurprisingly, both characterisations are usually bunk.

Approaching every interview as if you’re about to star in your very own Frost/Nixon is going to be massive overkill. Instead, treat them as a conversation between two human beings, both of whom have specific objectives that may overlap or diverge at different points.

Yes, there are unscrupulous journalists who will come into an interview with an ulterior motive. They are rare in every specialist field, and you will usually be able to see them coming. You are far better starting from a position of respect — and an expectation of respect in return — than you are from one of suspicion.

Old battle-hardened industry stalwart types will scoff at this perspective, citing various incidences where the press has “screwed them over”. In my experience, on closer inspection, many of these wounds tend to be self-inflicted and could have been avoided with a little bit of planning.

A Tale of Two Objectives

None of this means that you should naively blunder your way through every interview as though it’s a cheery pub conversation, though.

The journalist’s objective is to tell a story. A basic story defines its protagonists, sets up their intentions, pits them against an obstacle and then illustrates a change that has been brought about by the process. The interview provides raw material, and a good interviewer will then work to adhere that material to a narrative framework. If you’re surprised by a question or can’t see the point of it, try to figure out where it slots into the story that the journalist is building.

So what should your objective be as an interviewee? It might be to draw attention to an important cause, make a significant statement, promote a product, or merely get yourself out there in general to increase your profile, but the most important thing is that you have an objective in the first place. This isn’t cynical or disingenuous: it’s a destination to aim for on what will, hopefully, be an interesting journey. Remember, you don’t have to take an interview — doing so should be an active choice.

“On Message”

The entire game is doing this…

…without doing this

To maintain a human connection — and also to be good copy — you will have to relax and allow the conversation to flow. You’ll probably end up going to some surprising places, and that’s a good thing, as long as you don’t stray too far from the path for too long.

Saying “on message” isn’t about constantly trying to bring everything back to Rampart or reciting a list of bullet points. However, you should keep your objective gently in mind.

Think about what you’re trying to convey about yourself or your work: what do you really want people to know? Coming up with two or three very general areas that you’d like to steer towards in advance can be a good idea, but certainly don’t freak out if you can’t tick every box. Having a few stats, facts or relevant quotes in the back pocket also helps — you don’t need to go overboard with this though. Try to stay in command of your material without going on autopilot.

If you find yourself being drawn off-topic, either by the interviewer or your own meanderings, take a moment to check yourself. If you need a mnemonic, think of Ice Cube.

A very brief pause to consult with your superego should tell you everything you need to know: the question you should ask is “How is this helpful?” Maybe this preview coverage of your new video game isn’t the best time to discuss your hatred of three-quarter-length trousers…

…or maybe it is? If you are making a conscious decision to divert, and you keep the potential consequences in mind, by all means go ahead.

An interview isn’t a therapy session or a chance to unburden yourself. If you are in a difficult place emotionally and about to venture into the public eye then I entirely recommend you have counselling first. You need to get into a situation where you have some semblance of a coherent sense of self before you are ready to answer questions.

Confidence

If we have the awareness that an interview is extremely unlikely to be “hostile”, and we have some idea of our objective then we can start think about openness and confidence.

This is obviously a deeply personal matter that hinges on an individual’s own personality and life experiences. In general though, it can help to bear the following things in mind:

Practise

Practise salves nerves.

If you naturally get nervous in an interview situation, or you don’t have much experience, practise is very helpful. Take some time to write out a list of questions you’ll probably get — an easy way to do this is to read or watch some interviews that are relevant to your area. Remember that interviewers are storytellers. Then, just run through the questions and respond out loud to them. For extra credit, you could record yourself or have someone else read the questions to you.

In general, only profoundly unhinged people really love how they look and sound, so don’t worry about that. Those insecurities are normal and you will not be able to defeat them completely: try to acknowledge them, then shelve them.

If you’re a beginner, focus on two things to begin with: being intelligible and being friendly.

If people can understand what you’re saying, and they have a basic perception that you seem to be nice, that will go a very long way indeed.

Bear in mind that a few nerves make it much more likely that you will succeed: true interview disasters mostly only happen when the interviewee isn’t paying attention.

Attention Out, Not In

If you are actually paying attention to the interviewer, making eye contact, listening to their voice and tone, and being aware of their body language, you will have less bandwidth to worry about yourself. Not only is this polite, and will make you come across better, but it will help you to minimise “noise” like fidgeting, looking around the room and so on.

In almost every situation, you’ll want to ignore any peripheral ephemera: cameras, boom mics, recording equipment, dogs in over-sized hats etc. Just keep your focus steady.

Beyond the Basics

In almost every situation, the above tips may well be enough to get you through. Let’s move on to some more advanced concepts which may help you stay out of trouble if things get more involved…

Remember the Pull Quote

A “pull quote” is a short snippet used in print as a sub-heading. I’m not using it in a strict technical sense here though: think of it simply as any phrase which could be pulled out of the main text and quoted. It might be the only clip of a filmed interview that’s used, or it may form part of a headline.

Let’s consider the following sequence in a fictional print interview…

JEREMY INTERVIEWER: What was it like working on Venomous Space Cat Invasion 2? SANDRA INTERVIEWEE: Oh, ha…I know there have been some stories about the problems we had but at the end of the day it was great. The team were so nice to work with — everyone was so welcoming — you know it was my first time doing something of this scale. Admittedly, it felt like my trousers were on fire a lot of the time but ultimately everybody pulled through and we’re really happy with the result.

This is a silly example, but it should be obvious that “it felt like my trousers were on fire” would be the pull quote here. You might see that in bold text in the middle of the piece, or as part of a headline:

“It felt like my trousers were on fire”: Sandra Interviewee Talks About VSCI 2’s Development Hell

This process often leads interviewees who have given a poor pull quote to claim that their words were taken out of context. You could debate the fairness of the example I’ve given above, but stripping the fluff from a quote is generally fair game, and you should account for it.

There is one guaranteed way to exert control over the pull-quote and it is this:

Make sure the most interesting thing you say is on message

Leave some space around it

If you can come up with an exciting or amusing way to phrase something that matters to you, don’t be afraid to drop it in and then pause after you’ve said it. It’s a very simple technique you’ll see used countless times in celebrity interviews, but it works for every media situation.

On the flipside, if you want to avoid trouble, never say anything that is both pithy and highly controversial in public. A game developer friend of mine once got in mild PR trouble for calling the Nintendo Wii a “piece of shit” in a conference session: swearing, nearly swearing or otherwise using colourful language increases pull-quote probability significantly.

Pull quotes tend to be the only thing that anyone remembers from the interview in question, so if you give a duff one they can be tough to shake off.

The Answer is Everything

Keep in mind that the reader or audience may well not hear the question that precedes your answer. Here’s another ridiculous example:

JEREMY INTERVIEWER: Obviously everyone loves kittens — they are small, make tiny miaows and also zoom about — this is the epitome of cuteness which absolutely all people enjoy constantly. But they can be a bit difficult sometimes can’t they? SANDRA INTERVIEWEE: Ha ha yes I agree with this, kittens are a pain in the butt.

This could translate into: “Kittens are a pain in the butt,” she said, staring me down.

Watch for a load of qualifiers around a controversial issue in a question as a tell for this sort of thing. If there’s a long preamble, just take a second for a mental reset before you start to speak.

Quite often, journalists do this unintentionally, so don’t rush to attribute malice to anyone who frames a question this way — they may simply be trying to figure out their own position.

On the Record

It is best to assume by default that things you say to journalists are on the record (ie they can be published and attributed to you) unless you’ve made a specific agreement to the contrary. Even then, the legal situation can be a little grey.

Here’s a Guardian piece that deals with some of these issues.

For better or worse, it is generally assumed by interviewees that comments made outside of working situations (ie “in the pub” rather than at an actual formal preview or interview) are not fair game for publication. This is highly situation-dependent, but absolutely nobody will sympathise with you if you drop a leak or controversial remark in this context. You need to use your judgement and think very carefully about your relationship with the individuals present before saying anything you may not want to leave the room.

This can lead to the perception of a mode shift “when the recorder is turned off” — I’ve termed this “The Columbo Problem”. This is where the journalist ends the interview and then slips in a final question while they’re packing up: an afterthought, “just one more thing”.

To avoid this getting caught out by this, just keep the “I am on the record” flag set in your brain until you have physically parted ways with the interviewer.

If you are near a microphone (or indeed wearing one), act as if it’s live at all times. Even if you’re convinced that you’re not being broadcast or recorded, an audio engineer may still be able to hear everything you’re saying.

Ambitions Become Promises

Creative people take on impossible challenges and occasionally motivate themselves to attempt them by entertaining the delusion that they are capable of anything.

Unfortunately, delusional thinking or an over-inflated sense of capability are components in many significant ventures, so you need to learn humility and self-awareness, then communicate these values to your team.

Be very careful about how you frame your ambitions in interviews: they will be taken as promises or guarantees by anyone who is hotly anticipating your work. These then feed into the perception of your product and affect customer response at launch.

Even if you absolutely, wholeheartedly believe with all of your soul that a particular element will be there for launch but there is no evidence to back this up, you must try to look objectively at the situation. If you’ve encountered problems with this in the past, find a more grounded friend and colleague who you trust, and do a quick evaluation of your current state.

“Every player will be able to fly on a dragon” is a statement you can consider making if you currently have a fully working, scalable system for flight and a concrete, short-term timetable to add the requisite assets for dragons. You should never make a statement like this off the cuff — it must be a considered move, as it could well turn up as a headline.

If you are going to make a commitment, something like “I would love to get to a place where dragon flight is a possibility, but we’re absolutely not there yet” frames this more in terms of your personal feelings and insulates you from everything bar a really disingenuous selective quote.

Be very careful not to use interview questions as creative writing prompts to add features to your product. If something the interviewer says sparks an idea, shelve it and work on it later — tell them that it’s a great idea as well!

I am not telling you that you should curb your enthusiasm or undersell your project. Find the things which are real and already exist to enthuse about. Talk about the characters on your team and how much you believe in them; tell a story about a cool moment you shared with them. Talk about how people respond when they see the great thing in your demo for the first time.

By all means talk about your ambitions and mission, but frame these clearly as dreams and aspirations — stress how far away they are and the practical steps you are taking to work towards them.

You will be misinterpreted — you will still get “but they promised I could fly on a dragon” — but you need to give more ammunition to those customers who will defend you against others with ludicrous expectations.

Don’t Air Your Grievances

Interviews are not the place to burn bridges, unless that is your specific aim.

It might feel good at the time to call out Megacorp X on their frustrating business development practises, but don’t expect to work with them again, and do expect individuals who work there to carry their grudge over to new organisations when they change jobs.

This is where you have to be sure of your objective. If your overarching goal is to speak truth to power, to be critical and bring a difficult issue into the light, then that is commendable and you should go for it.

If you haven’t even really considered that as a move — if you don’t have your next step planned out — don’t sleepwalk into it.

If you are a small startup or newcomer, journalists will sometimes try to frame you in opposition to incumbents in order to establish an antagonist or obstacle in your narrative. Be careful around this — you might well be able score points by railing against the establishment, and it’s good to show some fighting spirit, but don’t pick fights for the sake of it.

Slagging off your peers isn’t a good look, but a healthy tongue-in-cheek rivalry makes good copy. As ever, it’s about balance.

Dealing with Boring Questions

“Where do you get your ideas?”

“What’s the best way to get into your profession?”

“What do you think about the future of your medium?”

“What was it like working with your fellow actors?”

Once you start giving interviews, you’ll come up against the same questions again and again — it can be pretty dull.

The trick with these is to use the question as a cue to go to a more exciting place. If you’re bored, your answer will be boring, so find a way to entertain yourself and your audience.

“Where do you get your ideas?” is an open-ended question that could take you in the following directions:

A discussion of your own personal history, or a story from your past

Your thoughts on the philosophy of creativity

Your beliefs on how people can unlock their creative side

A silly or ridiculous response that you’ve developed which will win the audience over

A hypothetical example where you illustrate how the genesis of a project leads to its eventual development

A quote or inspirational story

etc

If you find yourself getting a question a lot, think about how you can use it productively rather than just rolling your eyes at it.

Dealing with Difficult Questions

As your career progresses, particularly if you were feted as a prodigy or golden child at the outset, you will inevitably experience some backlash. Sometimes there will be questions on hot-button topics, probing personal enquiries or other unwanted intrusions.

As I stressed at the outset, in most fields these will be rare. However, it does pay to understand the tools you have to deal with them when they do come up…

Reframe

The strongest way to deal with a difficult question is to reframe it, avoiding the form of words used by the interviewer.

JEREMY INTERVIEWER: Your last movie, Horse Space Commando, is considered by many to be the worst film of all time — do you think people got it wrong? SANDRA INTERVIEWEE: Well, it’s important to take creative risks — I really believe that…

Here, instead of buying into a perception that something is a failure, the interviewee frames it in the context of creativity. Instead of being drawn into criticising fans, or a defensive response, she can now talk in positive terms about her values — it’s a neat pivot.

This avoids “rebutting the negative”, a mistake that can solidify a negative perception in the mind of the audience:

JEREMY INTERVIEWER: Your last movie, Horse Space Commando, is considered by many to be the worst film of all time — do you think people got it wrong? SANDRA INTERVIEWEE: Horse Space Commando is definitely not the worst film of all time. Calling it the worst film of all time is…

The advantage of a reframe is that you are actually responding directly to the question, and it can quickly put you in a viable position to give an honest answer.

Bridging aka the Politician’s Answer

“Well, I think the real issue here is…”

“What we should be talking about is the government’s lack of…”

“I think the fans would rather hear about…”

“When I talk to our customers, they tell me that they are looking for…”

Bridging is the art of moving abruptly away from a question and towards your message.

It can be powerful, but it’s a joker card you should only play in extreme circumstances.

This is a technique that politicians and CEO’s abuse all the time. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair developed a verbal tic of beginning almost every answer with “Look…”, a kind of bridging cue.

Bridging is considered to be old hat in terms of media training these days but it’s still a better option than simply blundering straight into a terrible question, or feeling like you need to accept the interviewer’s frame.

No Comment

There is no law which says that you have to answer every single question in a media interview.

A blunt “no comment” might seem like a nuclear option but, framed with politeness and delicacy, it will work when used correctly. Sometimes interviewers reach into “cheeky” territory or ask you to speculate on an issue that’s out of your remit: they will know when they’re doing this, and that’s the time you can consider refusing to answer the question.

Some people seem to worry about how to phrase this — just politely decline to answer. If you really need specific examples, try the following:

“I can’t really talk about that right now”

“I’m afraid I can’t comment on that, but I can talk about…”

In games and tech, a quick “I’m afraid I can’t talk about that yet” goes a long way when an interviewer is asking you to speculate on future features. As ever, avoid making promises you can’t keep.

Meet it Head On

Preparation is your friend when it comes to difficult questions. If you can anticipate a real stinker, then you can formulate an answer in advance.

You could view this as a chance to improve — a way to challenge your own opinions and confront your past behaviour. Perhaps some of your ideas aren’t “controversial” because everyone else is wrong and you are intellectually superior: you might well be failing to empathise or flat-out wrong.

If there is something you’re worried about being asked in an interview, it can help to talk it over with trusted friends or family. Some of the worst press disasters happen when an interviewee lives in a bubble or has little awareness of social issues — if you’re going to make public statements, you need to read the room.

You never want to be thrown by a question. Even if you consider something outrageous or not “fair game”, remember that you can take a pause to evaluate and then move in whatever direction you want — ultimately, the interviewee controls an interview, and ceding that control is always a choice.

You will be Misinterpreted

While you are ultimately responsible for what comes out of your own mouth, misinterpretation — whether wilful or unintentional — is an inevitability. Culturally, we’re in a moment where intent is entirely subjugated to impact, and impact is often in the eye of the beholder.

The way to deal with this is, again, to be empathetic, as well as secure in your own values: if someone judges your words unfairly, you need to think about why they may be responding so strongly. Perhaps you could have phrased something better, or been mindful of perspectives that differ from your own.

At the same time, don’t be afraid to stand up for your own beliefs. If you act and speak with integrity and humility, then that’s a great start.

The Media Paradox

While minimising the potential for mistakes and disasters is often a prudent approach, if you’re truly in pursuit of attention — or merely being slightly interesting — then it often pays to break the rules.

This doesn’t mean that you should constantly say outrageous things or misbehave: this is a short-term strategy which eventually, inevitably, will lead to your own media downfall. Instead, think about how you can break obvious interview patterns in a benign or fun way while still being authentic and compassionate.

Interviews are strange beasts but they are, at heart, human interactions. Learn to truly treat them as such, and they won’t seem quite as intimidating.