Christopher Reeve

Christopher Reeve appears briefly but tellingly in Andy Warhol’s account of an Interview magazine assignment: Warhol and Maura Moynihan interviewed him in December 1984, when Reeve was still drunk from the night before. Warhol nevertheless judged him favorably and noted a striking change in his attitude: unlike when he first started, Reeve would now take any role.

The Interview

On December 11, 1984, Warhol recorded that he and Maura Moynihan had interviewed Reeve the previous day. The detail that Reeve was still drunk from the night before sits beside Warhol’s simple assessment that he was good. The entry offers no account of the interview’s questions or subject matter; its emphasis is on Warhol’s impression of the guest and the change he thought he saw in him.

A Changed Attitude

Warhol contrasted Reeve’s current outlook with the attitude he remembered from the beginning of his career. By 1984, he wrote, Reeve would take any role. The diary does not explain what prompted this shift or identify particular parts, so the observation remains Warhol’s compact, unelaborated judgment. Even so, the contrast suggests a change in Reeve’s approach to work as perceived by his interviewer.

The Magazine Context

The encounter took place within Interview’s celebrity-interview operation. The magazine’s growing glamour and its appeal to celebrities made the interview itself a point of contact between public figures and Warhol’s circle. Reeve’s entry is not a portrait of his life beyond that meeting: it preserves a fleeting professional encounter, colored by an unusually candid detail and Warhol’s sense that the guest’s willingness to work had changed.