Whilst not exactly (to paraphrase Richard Burton as Marc Anthony in Cleopatra) the ‘biggest thing to hit Rome since Romulus & Remus’, Oprah Winfrey’s recent interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex was certainly A Big Deal.
With over 17 million viewers watching in the States and 11.3m here, the renegade former royals cannot be ignored.
High-stakes interviews have long been a favourite subject of movies. The onscreen celebrity interview is obviously not a recent creation, with the phenomenon depicted in films as far back as Sunset Boulevard, Champagne for Caesar (both 1950), A Face in the Crowd (1957) and of course Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960).
But as these films show, few encounters go the way that the interviewers or interviewees expect or intend:
The Interview (2014) – Amazon Prime, Amazon Rent/Buy
Famously yanked off cinema screens due to the offence caused to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North), The Interview is a hoot – and a prescient one at that.
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