Interview magazine’s interview format

Interview magazine’s interview format turned celebrity conversation into both an editorial principle and a reason to appear: stars were meant to speak in their own words, ideally to other stars, while the magazine’s pages and photographs made new faces visible. As the magazine grew, it became a source of access and attention in its own right, even as real interviews exposed the gap between a public persona and the person performing it.

An original editorial premise

When Andy Warhol conceived Interview in 1969, he imagined a magazine oriented toward movies, where stars would simply talk in their own words, without editing, and, whenever possible, be interviewed by fellow stars. The combination was presented as new to magazine publishing. Rather than placing an authoritative writer between celebrity and reader, the format promised the encounter itself: one recognizable person asking questions of another, with the speakers’ own language carrying the exchange.

That aim depended on a deliberately small operation. Warhol’s business principle was to start on a low budget, finance the early stage himself, and build gradually so that ownership would not be surrendered to a backer. The modest means and the editorial ideal met in the same pages: the magazine sought the immediacy of unedited conversation without the elaborate resources of a large publishing operation.

The cost of unedited speech

The first issue exposed a practical limit to the promise of leaving words untouched. An interviewee had used a description of a well-known movie critic that a lawyer, consulted after the issue had gone to press, judged libelous. A less legally risky alternative was acceptable, but changing the printed copies required a manual repair. Andy Warhol, Paul Morrissey, Fred Hughes, Jed Johnson, Gerard Malanga, Pat Hackett, and whoever happened to come through the door spent about six hours working through bundles of copies with black felt-tip pens, crossing out the disputed word.

The episode made the editorial commitment tangible, but also showed that an interview did not exist outside the systems governing its publication. The speakers’ language might be intended to remain intact; once printed, it could still be subject to legal review, and the magazine’s tiny staff had to intervene physically in the finished issue. The format’s informality therefore coexisted with a laborious, unglamorous act of editorial control.

A new promise of visibility

By 1975, Warhol had bought out Peter Brant and become the magazine’s full owner and publisher, while Fred Hughes became its president. Warhol, previously somewhat detached from the daily operation, began looking over art director Marc Balet’s layouts and arranging lunches to pitch the magazine to prospective advertisers. Circulation continued to rise, and by 1976 Interview had acquired a sophisticated, self-mocking silliness that made celebrities want to appear in it. The magazine’s political conservatism and sexually androgynous presentation helped establish a distinctive identity, rather than the tone of a publication aimed at family readers.

Interview also became a new route into Warhol’s orbit. In the 1960s, the prospect of appearing in his inexpensive underground films had drawn people to the Factory; by the 1970s, commercially exhibitable films had become too costly to offer that opportunity reliably. The magazine filled the gap. Warhol and, often, a staff member conducted cover interviews, while each issue brought a continuing supply of people through the office. The old offer of a movie role gave way to the prospect of being placed in the magazine. Its pages also created recurring labels for young, previously unprinted male and female beauties, turning the act of discovering faces into part of the publication’s appeal.

Interviews, photographs, and performed selves

A 1978 interview with Shaun Cassidy at The Plaza Hotel showed how the format could register the pressure surrounding a celebrity image. Because Cassidy’s fans were young, the conversation had to remain clean; his answers struck the interviewers as stock responses. They asked how it felt to have thousands of girls screaming for him, and he maintained that idol status did not change a person. Walking through the lobby and the screaming crowd, however, he seemed to change; by the time he reached the limousine, his manner was different. The interview thus set his account of fame against the visible effect of being recognized.

The magazine’s work with Cassidy continued from conversation to photography. He was photographed for Interview by Barry McKinley, and Warhol observed him becoming absorbed in the camera’s attention. McKinley’s abrasive, profane directions differed sharply from the conventional praise Warhol associated with photographers; Warhol found the exchange striking enough to tape it. The session made image-making part of the story around the interview: the celebrity who offered answers in one setting became a different presence before the lens.

In another example, David Hockney came to lunch, Vincent Fremont made a video of him, and Hockney then went into another room to do the interview. The sequence joined hospitality, video, and conversation without reducing them to one medium. Taken together, these encounters show Interview as more than a printed question-and-answer device: it organized meetings, recorded changing performances, and made the passage between spoken exchange and public image visible.