Top 20 Times Celebs Mocked Horrible Interview Questions
They can't all be Barbara Walters! For this list, we’ll be looking at the most awkward and cringey interviews where the celebrity couldn’t ignore the ridiculousness of the questions being asked and responded perfectly.
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00:00 "I'm not gonna walk home with any men tonight."
00:02 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the top 20 times
00:07 celebs mocked horrible interview questions.
00:10 "You think I got canceled?"
00:11 For this list, we'll be looking at the most awkward and cringey interviews,
00:15 where the celebrity couldn't ignore the ridiculousness of the questions being asked
00:20 and responded perfectly.
00:22 Have you ever met any of the celebrities in the video? Let us know in the comments.
00:28 Hey Mojoholics, for a chance to win cash prizes, play our live daily trivia challenges every day
00:34 at 3pm and 8pm eastern only at watchmojo.com/play.
00:39 Number 20. Robert Downey Jr.
00:43 It was meant to be a simple promo interview for Avengers Age of Ultron with Channel 4
00:49 News' Krishnan Guru-Murthy in 2015. It should have contained fluff and cliché questions about
00:56 the actor's motivation. Instead, the interviewer went off-script and decided to try his hand at
01:02 some detective work. "But we also would like to talk a little bit about you, and I don't know
01:06 how comfortable you are, you know, talking about yourself at the moment." "You have as much time
01:11 as anyone else will." It's well documented that Robert Downey Jr. had some past troubles,
01:16 but he's been doing great for years. Guru-Murthy felt this was an appropriate time to bring up his
01:22 past. Rather than sit through it with gritted teeth, Downey challenged the purpose of this.
01:28 "You know, you think you're free of all of that, or whether that's still something you-" "I'm sorry,
01:33 I really don't. What are we doing?" After a stellar display of patience on Downey's part,
01:38 his publicist finally intervened, and the actor removed himself from the situation.
01:43 "You see, okay, it's just getting a little dinosaur in your-" "No, no, look, I don't want to do that!"
01:48 Downey later called the newscaster a "bottom-feeding muckraker" when chatting
01:53 on Howard Stern's radio show. 19. Mila Kunis
01:58 It's always weird when a journalist uses a film's press tour to be combative with a celebrity.
02:05 It's just uncomfortable viewing. In 2011, Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake were at a conference
02:11 for Friends with Benefits. Kunis showcased that she was born and raised in Ukraine before moving
02:17 to the U.S. by speaking Russian to an aggressive reporter. The journalist started with a friendly-ish
02:28 question before switching tones and asking Timberlake why he went from show business to movies.
02:35 Kunis picked up on the rudeness of the inquiry right away, and was having absolutely none of it.
02:45 Timberlake, who was getting a delayed translation of the situation, didn't get to say much. Luckily,
02:50 he didn't have to. Kunis defended his honor delightfully.
02:54 18. Taylor Swift
03:01 Ever since she reached the loft heights of superstardom, Taylor Swift's love life has
03:07 been an obsession for the media. "Who's she dating now?" seems to be the go-to thought for
03:12 many reporters, which is pretty invasive. At the Grammy Awards in 2015, Swift was interviewed by
03:19 Nancy O'Dell for Entertainment Tonight. It started off light, discussing the musician's dress.
03:25 "You said it's Ellie's top?" "It's beautiful." "Yeah, it is. And it's ombre,
03:28 it's like ombre teal, it gets lighter to the bottom, and then I have purple shoes on,
03:32 'cause why not?" Then, O'Dell immediately segues to Swift's legs,
03:37 claiming that after the ceremony, she'd be going home with lots of men. Yikes.
03:42 "You're gonna walk home with more than maybe just a trophy tonight, I think lots of men."
03:46 After the glare of the century, probably as Swift considered the audacity of the implications,
03:51 she didn't hesitate as she confirmed that would not be the case.
03:55 Instead, she proclaimed excitement about seeing her friends and going home to her cats.
04:00 "I'm gonna go hang out with my friends, and then I go home to the cats."
04:04 "No men allowed."
04:05 "Men get me in trouble, I don't, you know."
04:08 Number 17. Jonah Hill.
04:10 Since gaining fame in 2007's Superbad, entertainment journalists have loved to
04:16 bring up Jonah Hill's body. While Hill himself hasn't been free from controversy, this line of
04:22 questioning by the media is bonkers, creepy, and just plain disrespectful. In 2014, Hill was at the
04:29 Georgia Institute of Technology to do a radio show. A reporter started by saying that he looked great,
04:35 which Hill thanked her for.
04:37 "I just decided one day I wanted to be healthier, and I went and saw a nutritionist, and
04:41 that's what I did. That's how I grew up."
04:44 But straight away, another reporter undid that brief decency by asking if he was considered
04:50 the fat guy at parties and in Hollywood. His reaction is just so perfectly uninhibited.
04:57 There were cues there for the reporter to backtrack, but they continued to ramble on instead,
05:02 and Hill responded beautifully.
05:04 "Uh, do you have any other questions that are smart?"
05:07 Number 16. Scarlett Johansson.
05:09 Whenever Scarlett Johansson has done press tours for the MCU, the rampant sexism displayed by
05:16 journalists is made apparent. Her male co-workers will get interesting, sensible questions about
05:22 their characters and work. Yet Johansson, for a while there, was almost consistently asked
05:27 personal and weird questions about frivolity like costumes or whatnot.
05:32 "Since when did people start asking each other about, in interviews, about their underwear?"
05:36 In 2012, when promoting The Avengers, Jeremy Renner and Johansson were interviewed by Extra,
05:42 and it was a wreck. The reporter decided that asking Black Widow what she wore
05:47 under the costume would be some good, hard journalism.
05:51 "This is not a... well, is it inappropriate?"
05:55 "To ask somebody what kind of underpants they wear?"
05:57 Johansson tore into the interviewer by saying it wasn't even a unique question,
06:02 as she'd been asked that multiple times. The reporter tried to deflect by admitting he
06:07 asked director Joss Whedon the same question, which did not yield better results.
06:12 "What kind of interview is this?"
06:15 Number 15. Samuel L. Jackson.
06:18 Rule number one of interviewing someone - make sure you have their identity correct.
06:23 Otherwise, you can appear incompetent at best and racist at worst.
06:28 In 2014, Samuel L. Jackson was promoting the remake of RoboCop, and was on the news channel KTLA.
06:36 After doing well for a bit, Sam Rubin made a massive mistake when he asked
06:41 Jackson about his Super Bowl commercial.
06:43 "Did you get a lot of reaction to that Super Bowl commercial?"
06:47 "What Super Bowl commercial?"
06:48 The silence was deafening. Rubin was seemingly confusing Samuel L. Jackson and Lawrence Fishburne.
06:55 Jackson laid into him by saying,
06:57 "We don't all look alike!"
06:58 before mocking him by comparing Fishburne, himself, and Morgan Freeman.
07:03 The razzing definitely went on for a while, which was very deserved.
07:08 And Rubin's attempts to change the subject did not pan out well.
07:12 "Let's talk about RoboCop."
07:13 "Oh, hell no!"
07:15 Number 14. Robert Pattinson
07:17 Entertainment reporters seem to think that if something happens to a celebrity - that's usually
07:23 private for us regular folks - then it's fair game to bring it up for them. Spoiler alert, it's not.
07:29 "You can relax here for a second."
07:31 In 2009, Robert Pattinson was doing a press tour for the Twilight Saga New Moon. He,
07:37 along with his team watching on the sidelines, did an interview with Ryan Seacrest.
07:42 It started out normal. But then, Seacrest attempted to grab some juicy gossip by asking
07:47 the future Batman actor about the dating rumors between him and co-star Kristen Stewart.
07:52 "What do you say to your fans who are desperate to know about you and your co-star Kristen?
07:59 What can you tell them?"
08:00 While Pattinson nervously laughed and focused his attention on a gift bag,
08:04 a member of his team stepped in to end the interview.
08:07 "The thing I can say to them is, 'Watch New Moon, it's amazing.'"
08:09 Number 13. Ariana Grande
08:13 Instead of asking a female artist about her inspirations, her motivations, or the meaning
08:17 behind some of her songs, some journalists prefer the uncomfortable sexist approach.
08:23 In 2015, Ariana Grande was interviewed by radio hosts Just Incredible and Eric D. Lux for Power
08:29 106 in Los Angeles, California. She was asked what she would choose between her phone or makeup.
08:36 "If you could use makeup or your phone one last time, which one would you pick?"
08:41 Unsurprisingly, Grande was bewildered at the nonsense question.
08:44 "Is this men assuming that that's what girls would have to choose between?"
08:48 Even after having shot it down and mocked the two men,
08:51 for some reason they continued to ask if she's able to go anywhere without her phone. Big yikes.
08:57 "How long can you go without looking at Twitter?"
08:59 "Many hours. Many hours."
09:02 The hosts then spent the rest of the interview playing up to gender
09:05 stereotypes that Grande smacked down every time.
09:09 12. Jane Fonda
09:11 Actor Jane Fonda has spoken about her cosmetic surgery publicly several times.
09:18 But there's a time and a place for such intimate questions. In 2017, Fonda was a guest on the
09:23 short-lived show Megyn Kelly Today to promote her film Our Souls at Night. Kelly decided to ask the
09:30 actress why she wasn't proud of the cosmetic work she had done.
09:33 "Hey, I read that you said you felt you're not proud to admit that you've had work done. Why not?"
09:37 Fonda was amazed she would ask such a question at that particular moment.
09:42 But Kelly pushed by complimenting her appearance.
09:45 "We really want to talk about that now?"
09:46 "Well, one of the things people think about when they look at you is how amazing you look."
09:50 Fonda retorted with short and generic advice before moving the interview back to the movie.
09:56 "Good attitude, good posture, take care of myself. But let me tell you why I
10:00 love this movie that we did, Our Souls at Night."
10:05 This incident sparked a public feud between the two,
10:08 who regularly took shots at each other in the months after.
10:11 Number 11. Helen Mirren
10:14 Michael Parkinson is considered one of the best interviewers in the UK.
10:18 However, he really tainted his reputation with his sexist questions to Helen Mirren in 1975.
10:26 As an emerging actor, she was on the show to discuss her stage career.
10:30 Even in the introduction, Parkinson couldn't help but focus on her looks and implied
10:34 promiscuity.
10:35 "Does it bother you?"
10:36 "No, I mean, uh..."
10:39 "Does it flatter you?"
10:41 "No."
10:42 "Does it annoy you?"
10:44 "No."
10:44 "Just doesn't move you at all?"
10:47 "Not in the slightest, in any direction whatsoever."
10:50 Somehow, it only got worse from there. Parkinson soon asked whether she felt what he
10:55 pathetically called her "equipment" was distracting to audiences.
11:00 Mirren handled it better than we would have, that's all we'll say.
11:03 "I'd like you to explain what you mean by my equipment in great detail."
11:09 "Well, your physical attributes."
11:12 "You mean my fingers?"
11:14 The rest of the interview had the host making barbed statements and continuing to be disrespectful.
11:20 When Mirren returned in 2006 to promote her role in The Queen,
11:24 the creepy interview was brought up, and Parkinson responded with some grand old misogyny.
11:29 "Now be fair to me, they were hanging out."
11:32 "No, they weren't."
11:33 Number 10. Jesse Eisenberg
11:36 The moment Eisenberg sits down for an interview with Romina Puga, things get awkward.
11:42 "So Freeman plays a magic debunker."
11:44 "Freeman? Who are you? Yeah, Freeman? Yeah, what are you on a baseball team with him?"
11:49 "Yeah, he's a buddy of mine."
11:50 "Okay."
11:51 The actor was promoting the film Now You See Me, leading Puga to go straight to magic tricks.
11:56 Eisenberg is clearly unimpressed with Puga's interview skills,
11:59 and criticizes the writing on her hand, how she casually referred to Morgan Freeman as just Freeman,
12:05 and even called her the "carrot top of interviewers,"
12:08 a comparison that's very hard to find a compliment in.
12:11 "Do you know the comedian Carrot Top?"
12:14 "Yes, horrible."
12:15 "Well, you were like the carrot top of interviewers."
12:18 "Yeah."
12:18 "Ooooh."
12:19 "No, it's a good thing."
12:20 "I'm gonna go cry now."
12:21 "No, don't cry now."
12:22 Eisenberg, or Jesse Eisenberg, did humor her with a card trick,
12:26 but the atmosphere remained painfully awkward.
12:29 "Your attention."
12:30 Number 9.
12:34 Quentin Tarantino
12:36 Quentin Tarantino movies are famous for their violence,
12:38 so it's safe to say that the director is not only an expert on the subject,
12:43 he's also pretty sick of discussing it.
12:45 "But why are you so sure that there's no link between enjoying movie violence,
12:49 and enjoying real violence?"
12:51 "I don't, I, I'm gonna tell you why I'm so sure?
12:54 Don't ask me a question like that.
12:55 I'm not gonna, I'm not biting.
12:57 I refuse your question."
12:58 "Why?"
12:59 "Because I refuse your question.
13:00 I'm not your slave, and you're not my master."
13:02 Since the beginning of his career, it's been a lazy,
13:04 within-arms-reach recurring topic.
13:06 But Krishnan Guru-Murthy opted to go there anyway,
13:10 asking if Tarantino thought that violence in his movies
13:12 encouraged violent actions in real life.
13:15 Tarantino not only refused to answer the question,
13:18 he also refused to explain why he wouldn't answer the question.
13:21 In an attempt to be highbrow, Guru-Murthy continued to push the issue,
13:25 making it more and more awkward,
13:27 and Tarantino more and more angry.
13:30 "I have explained this many times in the last 20 years.
13:33 I just refuse to repeat myself over and over again
13:35 because you want me to.
13:36 For you and your show, and your ratings."
13:39 "Okay, well, no, it's not about our ratings."
13:42 Number 8.
13:43 Anne Hathaway
13:44 When Anne Hathaway starred as Catwoman in Dark Knight Rises,
13:48 she needed to get into comic book shape.
13:50 And boy golly, didn't the interviewers love to ask her about it.
13:53 "You are in phenomenal shape."
13:56 "Thank you."
13:56 "You're very... you're always in great shape,
14:00 but you had to make sure you were in perfect shape for this one, didn't you?"
14:04 Extras Jerry Penacoli was especially interested,
14:09 asking for details on her diet, her fitness routine,
14:12 specific exercises, and the actual fit of the suit.
14:16 It got to the point where Hathaway had to ask
14:18 if he was planning on going on a diet to try and fit into a cat suit,
14:22 because surely that's the only explanation of why he'd be so interested.
14:25 "No, no, no, I..."
14:26 "No, no, seriously, we have to talk about this.
14:28 What do you want? Are you trying to fit into a cat suit?"
14:31 "I might be."
14:32 "You are? Oh, okay."
14:33 Lucky for Penacoli,
14:35 Hathaway was able to find the humor in the situation and ride through it.
14:38 Number 7.
14:46 Mayim Bialik
14:47 We get it, when working the red carpet at any awards show,
14:51 you have to interview a lot of stars,
14:53 and in-depth research becomes difficult.
14:55 Which is how we get moments like these.
14:57 At the SAG Awards, Mayim Bialik was asked if a lot of people
15:15 assumed she could do calculus because she portrayed Amy,
15:18 a neuroscientist on the Big Bang Theory.
15:21 "We are using it to map brainwave patterns,
15:22 and then converting them into electrical impulses
15:24 that could be used to control anything, from wheelchairs to robots."
15:27 "Based on that ring on your finger,
15:28 I'd say you're pretty good at controlling robots."
15:30 Well, it turns out that, yes, Mayim Bialik can do calculus,
15:34 because she just so happens to be an actual neuroscientist in real life,
15:38 a fact that she happily shared with the interviewers.
15:41 "She is actually a neuroscientist."
15:43 "I'm glad I asked."
15:44 "She's been planning for this role her whole life."
15:46 "Exactly, yeah. Well, just for 12 years, but yeah."
15:48 Number 6.
15:50 Cara Delevingne
15:50 Nothing puts a woman, or anyone for that matter,
15:54 in a good mood like being told they seem exhausted and irritated.
15:57 "I saw you in London talking a couple weeks ago on TV,
16:00 and you seemed a lot more excited about it than you do right now.
16:03 Are you just exhausted?"
16:04 "Oh, uh, no. I mean, I'm still very excited."
16:10 In Cara Delevingne's case, these comments came at the end
16:13 of an already awkward interview on Good Day.
16:15 "Maybe I had a bit more energy. It's the morning."
16:19 Things started off with the host talking down to her,
16:21 and obviously not understanding Delevingne's sarcastic sense of humor.
16:25 She tried to lighten the mood by explaining it was just early for her,
16:28 but when the host told her to take a nap and drink a Red Bull,
16:31 there was no saving the interview.
16:33 "We'll let you go then. How about that?
16:34 We'll let you go take a little nap, maybe get a Red Bull. How about that?"
16:37 "Cara Delevingne, thank you so much."
16:40 Number 5.
16:41 Matt Damon
16:42 Oh boy. If you want an interview to go well,
16:45 maybe don't insult someone's work ethic or their motivation.
16:49 Especially if that person's Matt Damon.
16:51 "In acting, there isn't job security, right?
16:54 There's an incentive to work hard and be a better actor
16:58 because you want to have a job. So why isn't it like that for teachers?"
17:02 When an ambushed journalist insinuated that the only reason the actor is such a hard worker
17:06 is because his career doesn't have job security, Damon didn't appreciate the insinuation.
17:12 "It's not an incentive. That's the thing.
17:13 So you take this MBA style thinking, right? It's the problem with ed policy right now.
17:18 There's this intrinsically paternalistic view of problems that are much more complex than that."
17:23 Matt Damon is by all accounts an intelligent man,
17:26 so his explanation on why her question is stupid is suitably eloquent,
17:30 and gave her a few moments to reflect on her life choices.
17:33 Given that he was attending a teacher's rally,
17:35 he even managed to work her limp question into a succinct vessel of support for educators.
17:41 "A teacher wants to teach. I mean, why else would you take a s*** salary
17:46 and really long hours and do that job unless you really love to do it?"
17:55 Number 4. Jim Carrey
17:57 Apparently, "what's up" is a very loaded question for Jim Carrey.
18:01 When interviewed at New York Fashion Week,
18:03 Carrey explained he wanted to come to the most meaningless place he could think of.
18:07 "I wanted to find the most meaningless thing that I could come to and join and here I am."
18:14 "I mean, you gotta admit it's completely meaningless."
18:17 Cat Sadler tried to defend the event, saying it promoted icons,
18:21 but Carrey just went deeper, saying he didn't believe in icons or in anything really.
18:26 "Yeah, no, I don't believe in icons. I don't believe in personalities. I believe that peace
18:33 lies beyond personality, beyond invention and disguise, beyond the red S that you wear on your
18:39 chest." He later contextualized the bizarre reaction, saying he was having a bit of an
18:43 existential crisis and at the moment, he didn't know who Jim Carrey was,
18:47 which was hopefully enough to give Sadler something resembling closure.
18:51 "If you go deep enough into those characters,
18:53 you realize that your own character is pretty thin to begin with,
18:56 and then you suddenly have this separation and go, 'who's Jim Carrey? Oh, he doesn't exist.'"
19:03 Number 3. Jerry Seinfeld
19:05 This interview went down as one of Larry King's worst interview moments in his epically long
19:11 career, so you know it's going to be a doozy. While interviewing Jerry Seinfeld, King brought
19:16 up his eponymous sitcom and made the mistake of clarifying that it hadn't been cancelled.
19:20 "Lasted how long?"
19:21 "Nine years."
19:22 "180 episodes."
19:23 "You gave it up, right?"
19:24 "I did."
19:25 "They didn't cancel you. You cancelled them."
19:28 Jerry's reaction is one of pure outrage, accusing King of not knowing who he is and
19:33 reminding viewers just how successful the show was.
19:36 "You're not aware of this?"
19:37 "No, I'm asking you."
19:38 "You think I got cancelled? Are you under the impression that I got cancelled?"
19:41 "Have I hurt you, Jerry?"
19:43 "I thought that was pretty well documented."
19:44 Let's get this straight. No one cancels Jerry Seinfeld.
19:48 Jerry Seinfeld cancels them, just like Larry was trying to say.
19:52 "Which one's supposed to be the funny guy?"
19:54 "He's the comedian."
19:56 "I'm just a regular person."
19:58 "No, no, he's just being modest."
19:59 Number 2. Tom Hardy
20:02 After playing a gay man in Legend, film media began to ask questions regarding Tom Hardy's
20:08 own sexuality. At a Toronto Film Festival panel, he was asked by a journalist from The Daily Extra
20:14 if he found it difficult to publicly discuss his sexuality, a question the actor found a tad
20:19 offensive.
20:20 "Do you find it hard for celebrities to talk to media about their sexuality?"
20:24 "What on earth are you on about?"
20:27 "What do you mean?"
20:28 After some back and forth as to why one would feel the need to ask such a thing,
20:32 Hardy dismissed it with a simple thank you.
20:35 "Are you asking me about my sexuality?"
20:36 "Um, sure."
20:38 "Why?"
20:40 "Why?"
20:40 "Um…"
20:43 "Thank you."
20:44 "Okay."
20:44 The outlet went on to defend the question, as they are a gay and lesbian news source,
20:49 but Hardy has defended his stance as well,
20:52 saying it was not an appropriate place to talk about such a personal issue.
20:56 "I was wondering if you find it difficult for celebrities to talk about their sexuality?"
20:59 "I don't find it difficult for celebrities to talk about their sexuality."
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21:18 1. Joaquin Phoenix
21:21 Joaquin Phoenix famously loathes interviews, even the good ones. In his own words,
21:26 he absolutely hates them. So if you have the chance to interview him, you better keep it
21:30 interesting. "So what's going on?" "Joaquin, directly in front of you, Chris with GMA Philippines.
21:36 The movie obviously is about the Joker, but it goes beyond that. It's really about
21:39 the mental state he was in. Can you tell me a little bit about what research or what kind of,
21:44 what you did to prepare for this? Because this was really an intense performance."
21:49 Following his outstanding performance in Joker, Phoenix faced renewed attention from the world's
21:54 press and clearly quickly became tired with the same set of questions, and he let everyone
22:00 backstage at the Golden Globes know it. "Isn't this old news? Isn't this old news? Didn't I,
22:06 I felt like I've talked about this for six months." Asked a by then fairly routine question,
22:11 Joaquin dismissed it initially as old news, before laying into it with sarcasm-fueled,
22:16 ultra-thorough detail. "Thank you so much for asking that question.
22:20 My publicist is telling me I need to get, need to go home."
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22:36 [Music]