Teenaged interviewer Jay Tenem

How many teenaged interviewers are there? I only know of two: myself and the terrific Jay Tenem. The high school junior has been interviewing actors and celebrities for coming on two years now, and he is brilliant at what he does. A rookie in this business compared to him, I chatted with Jay recently and got him to tell me how it's done.

To start things off, how about you talk about how you started getting into interviewing?
Well, it was coming up on two years ago now. It was my fifteenth birthday, and for some reason I was just sitting around feeling upset. I don't know why; everyone asked me why I could possibly be upset on a birthday. But I was just thinking of how I could meet famous people. I wanted to get in to acting, so I thought by meeting famous people I could make contacts in the business—not that I'd rely on them to help me, but in case I needed a favor I'd know people in the business.

And then I thought of my plan, which was just maybe to interview a couple small people for the high school paper. So I went up to school, and I spoke to the editors of the paper and a bunch of other people and basically they just told me, "Okay, if you can do that, go ahead," but they really didn't think anything would come of it. That was May, so we only had about a month left of school, so by the time I got any interviews set up it was already summertime. So I worked really hard over the summer, just dealing with managers and publicists all day long, and by the end of summer I had a whole bunch of interviews that I brought back in September and everyone was shocked.

Do you generally try to use the fact that you're in high school to your advantage?
Honestly, that was my only leverage point when I was starting off. It was just like: these people get so many emails a day; why are they going to choose me to interview Denzel Washington? A star like him—why would they choose a kid in high school? But they really took, I guess you can say, a liking to it: I was the only kid calling up persistently, emailing, following up, and… high school kids are a demographic now. So with a high school kid, that's a whole school of people that can see someone's new movie. So the people going out and buying tickets are not so much really the younger people or the really older people; say, a movie like Semi-Pro: a 50-year-old guy's not really going to watch that movie, it's for teenagers.

So they were really… I don't know, because they're all publicists and they get so many emails it's hard to get in touch with them, but if you keep trying—I meet a lot of people on red carpets, which is nice because they just know me from my email address and my phone voice; they've never seen me or seen a picture of me. So when they see me on a red carpet it kind of legitimizes everything that they thought about me. So basically I just used the high school thing at the beginning—high school paper, high school paper, high school paper—and I have almost literally fifteen pages of information at my house from agents and getting in touch with publicists, because it's hard to find out who reps whom. So once I got down a system for that, it was really easy. It was just a matter of getting in touch with them, and an interview takes a while to set up, even still.

But now I'm really covering a lot more events than anything else. So I'm out of school early, and I go to the city three or four days a week covering different things. So now, at this point—I hate to say in my career, but at this point, it's just like all the publicists know me. I can see publicists and I can name them. Publicists with huge companies, publicists with small companies, and they all know who I am, and they all are glad to work with me, and I guess it's because they know I'm not going to ask stupid questions, and that's it. So now I don't need the high school card at all; now it's just, "Oh. Jay Tenem wants to do an interview; get Rachel Bilson on the phone with him tomorrow." Or something like that.

[laughs] I see. How did you get started covering events?
It was funny. I was headed out to L.A. that first summer—

For a different reason or to do interviews?
I was going out for interviews. Really, the basis of my whole trip—even when I started off, I was obsessed with the show "24". I wanted to meet Kiefer Sullivan. I thought it would be just amazing to be like, "I met the guy who plays Jack Bauer!" I loved everything about the show, everything about the character, and I thought by interviewing everyone on "24" I'd get to meet Kiefer—it would give me a better vantage point to attack the publicist with that request. I thought if I'd never interviewed anyone and I sent in the quest they'd deny me, but if I said "I've interviewed everyone on the show," which I did, it would be a lot easier. And I did get the interview, I got to meet him and everything, so that was really my main reason to go out. I was interviewing the main people on the show and watching production.

So I was out there doing my thing, and I don't really like to sit around, so I thought, "While I'm out there—I'm in L.A., it's the heart of the business out there, so I should take advantage." I had free tours set up at Paramount, Sony, Universal, everywhere, and I found out the Teen Choice Awards were actually going to be the weekend I was there and the Emmys were going to be the weekend after. So I just filled out a form to get credentials to get into the Teen Choice Awards, and I was like, "Whatever, that would be cool but it's never going to happen. A high school paper—even though it's teens, why would they have someone like me there?" But I did my credentials, sent out a nice form thanking everyone, and then did that for the Emmys. And I got the Emmys one back right away saying, "You need to be 18." So that was me being totally shot down. I was like "Alright, whatever, I still have the set visit to '24' and to a bunch of different sets, and I'm still going to be fine."

The Wednesday or Thursday of the week I left I said, "Oh, I never heard back from the Teen Choice Awards, so I'm going to give them a call." So I call up the contact at Fox and she's like, "Hold on, let me check if your name's on the list." So she put me on hold for like five minutes, and I was just sitting there like, "Okay, she's going to turn you down. She's going to turn you down." And then she's like, "Oh, Jay, your name's on the list, so we will see you this Sunday!" And I was shocked. I remember calling my mom and screaming in the phone, "Mom, I'm going to the Teen Choice Awards! I can't believe it!" So that was my first red carpet. And then I actually called up the Emmys, and I tried to maneuver my way in and talked to the publicists over there, so I got to do that as well.

Wow! Impressive!
So that was my first red carpet, so I made contacts over at Fox's publicity and… I was just so ecstatic to be out there, just to cover my first red carpet, and I was confident to come back to New York and start applying for credentials for different premieres. So now I cover every premiere and event that comes out here.

Right. Do you still do individual interviews?
Yeah. I do do a lot of sit-downs and everything. I checked your website out probably a month ago, and you had your "Gossip Girl" interviews—

Ah, yes. They came and filmed at my school, so I managed to get my interviews through that.
Okay, yeah, because I know their publicists and managers and—so you just happened to be able to catch them?

By chance, yeah.
Okay. Yeah, they're nice girls.

They're really sweet.
So… hold on. There was a question behind that.

[laughs] I was just asking if you still do sit-downs.
Yes, I do. Now that they're back to work and going to the set pretty soon, I'm setting it up with their manager and publicist. So I'm going to go—I don't know, I think they might shoot in Silvercup Studios when they do shoot off-location, so I'm going take a ride out there for a day and just do it there.

Right. Is there a particular type of person you most enjoy interviewing? I mean, musicians have different things to say than actors, and so on.
Well, it's something that—all directors must think different than actors. And not even actors who turn directors, it's only people who aren't interested in the acting aspect, it's just directing. Really mostly every director I talk to, they're like "What do you do this for? How are you at the red carpet? What are you doing here?" Not being rude, but they're just curious that I'm the only kid there and they see everyone else just standing there and then they see a kid. So they're kind of—not shaken, but they're interested in why I'm there doing what I'm doing. Nearly no actor has asked me that. Some publicists, when they find out where I'm from, will let the actor know; it'll be like, "Oh, sure, we'll send Dustin Hoffman over—what are you writing for?" So I'll tell them, and I'll be like, "Oh, I deal with your office all the time, or with your assistant," or "We've spoken before," and then they'll be like, "Oh, Dustin, this is Jay, from…" So that's how it really works.

But I would say the ideal sit-down interview, either on the phone or in-person—I guess it's kind of the same, even though obviously I like in-person better because it's more personal. But just someone who's interested, someone who wants to talk, and they've got stories behind where they came from, not just three-word answers. I've had to be in a couple of those, and it's hard to sit through. They don't really cut my questions short, but it's just like, "You're not really giving me anything here; I'm not going to run the interview." And I don't like doing that, because I don't want to be naïve or the person who thinks he's so big and he can cut people from the paper, but…

Right. Is there a particular topic you most enjoy discussing in your interviews?
Um… for red carpet questions, "What new projects are you working on?" I need to find out what they're doing. And then when I write it up, I can reword it. Or I'll reword it when I work for radio, too. Sit-down interviews, I really start from when they started acting. "Did you ever attend an acting school? Was this always something you wanted to get into? Are there other actors in your family?" Then when it comes up I'll ask them about interesting topics on a project that they did. Yeah, I really ask—not the same things, because everyone has different projects, but I do have a basic guideline. I have questions for musicians, questions for actors, questions for directors, so it varies from interview to interview.

Do you do email interviews as well?
I do, as a last resort. I'd rather not do an email interview. I would rather wait until they can meet in person or get on the phone before I take an email interview.

Do you interview certain people more than once?
Freddie Highmore I've interviewed three times in the past two months. Who else? All the High School Musical kids I've become friends with from interviewing them a bunch of times. The cast of "24"… Wait, you're talking about interviewing more than once. I do mostly with red carpet stuff, or with TV shows: if I'm interviewing someone from a show, I could go back the next season and interview them again—the first interview will be like half an hour, and for the second interview I'll only need like five minutes to ask them about the new stuff they're doing and talk about the upcoming season.

Why do you focus on red carpet interviews?
Now it's because there are so many and it's so much easier to get a red carpet interview. Well, not so much a red carpet interview, just getting onto the red carpet. There's Fox, there's Warner Brothers, there's Universal, there's Paramount, and then there's New Line—and Weinstein. So those are really the only six companies that are really bringing a lot of stuff to New York, premieres, so I know everyone in the publicity departments, so they get me on the red carpet. So it's a lot easier once I get on the carpet, just to pull people over. And I also write reviews, so I get to go into the premiere as well, so when I'm in the premiere I can write the review and also get to meet everyone inside. So if they were running really, really late and had to just run them by, I could get them inside.

Do you just write for your school paper or do you also write for other sources as well?
I do freelance for a bunch of other people. I can't really talk about it on the record—but I do radio and I write for about six magazines now.

Have you read Interview Magazine?
I've seen it; I was meeting with them to maybe do some stuff with them and they were going to write a piece on me, but I haven't read it cover-to-cover.

It's a really great magazine. I've started reading it since starting with Good Prattle, and it focuses on interviews, of course, and it's got really great content.
Okay. I was going to take a look at it, but I just haven't had the time, or… I don't know. But I stick more to the pop culture kind of stuff. People ask me all the time, "Oh, are you going to interview the Rolling Stones?", or people like that, but it's mostly just people who are in the news all the time: Lindsay Lohan, people like that.

I see. Well, I think we are done!
Okay. Cool!


There you have it: some insight into the interviewing process from perhaps the youngest seasoned veteran around! Unfortunately, chances are you won't get to read Jay's interviews unless you go to his high school (or harrass them into letting you subscribe to their paper), but who knows? Maybe you'll stumble upon one of his interviews in a magazine (or on a radio show) near you!