In 2015, the virtually unknown Sean Evans began hosting a small YouTube talk show called Hot Ones, where he interviewed people as they sampled an assortment of spicy wings. Guests included DJ Khaled, Machine Gun Kelly and Ja Rule. 11 years and billions of views later, it’s one of the biggest interview platforms in the world, having become a phenomenon, and the number of A-Listers who’ve been on it is too long to list.

However, before you start thinking this is some Hot Ones hit-piece, it certainly isn’t- I think that show is great, and Evans has been rightly lauded for his disarming ability to find excellent questions for the faces who appear as they wipe sauce off their fingers. My problem is that that sort of “person talks while doing something else” format feels like it’s pretty much taken over and has become so universal that it’s both irritating and suffocating.

My problem is that that sort of “person talks while doing something else” format feels like it’s pretty much taken over and has become so universal that it’s both irritating and suffocating.

Rufus, Contributing Entertainment Writer

You know exactly the ones I mean, the ones you see as you scroll through your choice of TikToks/Reels/Shorts. Celebs answering questions while petting dogs, or trying food from a different country (usually an American star daringly eating beans on toast), or while juggling, or cooking, and so on and so on. Many of these have, in my view, made pop culture in 2026 boring in a number of ways, and become emblematic of a bigger problem.

A distraction from the interview itself

First, your focus while watching is always partly taken up by whatever the A-List celebrity is doing, and while tame, softball questions are nothing new, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen an interview where what’s been said actually sticks with me. The aim of these interviews, of course, is promotion, so you’ll be aware to check out Spider-Man Brand New Day, but you probably don’t remember much else from what Tom Holland says other than he prefers Walkers over Doritos.

Your focus while watching is always partly taken up by whatever the A-List celebrity is doing, and while tame, softball questions are nothing new, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen an interview where what’s been said actually sticks with me.

Less personal and more scripted

Second, the interviewer, once a commanding presence in the media, is often diminished and forgotten. Part of why Hot Ones has found success is that it ensures Sean Evans assumes the role of the everyman as he picks a star’s brain, something that has made Alison Hammond a viral sensation- and they usually have good chemistry with their interview subjects. Graham Norton still airs and still has one of the best talk shows around.

But so often now it feels like interviewers are off screen, or questions merely written on cards, and while it can yield results where a celeb opens up to camera (like the Wired autocomplete interviews, itself a format that’s been copied to death), it often all feels impersonal and uninvoling, somehow even more so than when everyone was interviewed in virtual boxes on Zoom during the pandemic.

Keeping up the PR image as priority

But the biggest issue of modern interviews (and to be clear this is something that has been debated for a while now) is how much of a sanitised, glossy sheen there is to everything.

The idea of keeping up a PR image has certainly always applied to celebrities, but the short-form, frivolous ways we’re exposed to them has made it even more so. Stand-out memorable interview clips basically don’t happen anymore: there is no room for a Tom Cruise leaping on the sofa moment, or Tarantino’s “I’m shutting your butt down” moment.

Do you prefer more in depth celeb interviews?

Part of it seems to be that instant social media reactions temper the words of the famous: while I disagreed on Tarantino’s opinions on Paul Dano’s acting prowess, the firestorm that erupted and went on for a bizarrely long time- even to the point others from Hollywood decided to hop on Instagram to wag their finger- it suggests that people can’t seem to handle provocative statements or people actually speaking their mind. Am I saying interviewers need to be more intrusive and rude to interviewees in a mean, tabloid-like way? No, but perhaps an interview show or format which allows for some actual discussion (it doesn’t have to be stuffy and monotonous) might liven things up.

Am I saying interviewers need to be more intrusive and rude to interviewees in a mean, tabloid-like way? No, but perhaps an interview show or format which allows for some actual discussion might liven things up.

Find clips online of interviews from stars of decades ago- Marlon Brando, Orson Welles, Katherine Hepburn- and you’ll notice, aside from the simplicity of the setup and the length, the comments below are usually filled with “Wow, celebs spoke much more plainly then; everyone now is so PR-conscious”. This is partly nostalgic yearning for the days when you had to squint at your box television to make out their faces, but does it seem to suggest we’ve lost something, not just in pop culture but in society?

The podcast revolution

If you’ve read this far, you may have been thinking “ah, but what about podcasts! That’s the modern interview format!” and you’d be right in many ways. In the past few weeks, The Rest Is History invited actor Tom Holland to be interviewed by the other Tom Holland (one of the podcast’s co-hosts and a historian) about The Odyssey, resulting in a fun and engaging chat about history and film. But I will say that the creeping criticism that it feels like every famous person now has a podcast, and uses it to invite their famous friends on as we listen in, often does feel true, and often does seem to lead to similarly uninteresting discussion.

Final thoughts

So what is the solution? Is there a solution, given how short-form media is becoming? I don’t have a definite answer (this isn’t a lead-up to me springing into promotion to a hypothetical new celebrity show, sorry to disappoint), but it does feel like there is definitely room and an audience for a more stripped-down, focused and even intimate format for celebrity interviews. With this increasingly virtual world, the demand for something authentic and genuine is, I think, growing. In the meantime, Sean Evans- keep eating those wings.

Culture, Films & TV

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