Mommy interviews child star Jordana Beatty and author Megan McDonald of Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer for San Diego Bargain Mama

Last week on behalf of San Diego Bargain Mama, I set out to do my very first celebrity interview with child star Jordana Beatty of Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer, and author of the Judy Moody book series, Megan McDonald. I had such a fun time chatting with these ladies. This dynamic duo had the chemistry of the cool-fun-loving aunt and the outgoing-adventurous niece.

I have to say, I learned a lot preparing for and conducting this interview. I wanted to share those lessons with you in case you ever have the opportunity to interview a celebrity, or anyone for that matter. I hope this is not my last so, I’m also jotting these down for myself.

1. Do your research! Get to know the background of your interviewees. Dig deep to find interesting facts about them, their childhood, their role in a film, etc. They’ll appreciate you for it.
2. Befriend your PR contacts and do not be afraid to ask questions. I was luck that my contact was so helpful and accommodating. She answered all of my questions and made sure I had everything I needed for the interview.  Since it was my first interview, I didn’t know whether it was okay to bring recording devices, cameras, etc. Although I was a bit ashamed to ask at first, I did. Like they say in school, “the only stupid question, is the one that is never asked,” right!? I was just determined to my best and asking questions paid off.
3. Know what you want to ask. Write your questions down ahead of time. Take the time to rehearse them. If you have several questions to ask, it’s okay. It’s better to have more than not enough. Just make sure you notate which ones are most important to ask.
4. Know your angle. This isn’t always important, but I found that if you have an edge, you won’t be asking the same questions as everyone else. Sure there are the obvious, “tell me how you got into the biz or tell me about the movie” questions, but if you develop your questions on an angle you have an advantage of coming away with a unique interview. For example, one of my questions for Megan was, “Judy Moody has proven to help celebrate literacy for young girls. Did you expect the book to be used as such a tool all over the world and to be published in 20 languages?” This open ended question gave me a lot to chew on. You can tell Megan appreciated the question because she went into great detail to answer it.
5. Remember the K.I.S.S. Rule. Keep It Simple Stud 🙂 During the interview I was able to ad lib a few of my questions. It’s important to be prepared, but it’s just as important to let the conversation flow. You never know what kind of interesting information your interviewee will reveal. In line with keeping things simple, when developing your questions try not to have multiple questions in one. I found that this can steer the conversation or answer in one too many directions causing you to miss out on other questions.
6. Be in control. As the interviewer, you must have some control of the conversation. This may mean rearranging your questions on the spot, leaving some out,  or again being able to ad lib. Otherwise, you can be left with only having asked a few questions, and not enough meat for a story.
7. Be cautions of time – one finger, means one more question. The last thing I wanted to do was get on the PR company’s bad side. I was representing San Diego Bargain Mama and I wanted them to call again for future opportunities. What I didn’t realize going into this was that interviewing required the skill of multi-tasking, which I believe I posses, most of the time! You have to make eye contact with your interviewees, be natural, maneuver your recording device, remember to take pictures/video, remember your questions, ask your questions, make the conversation flow, and make sure you do it all within the time you’re allotted. One of the lovely PR ladies made eye contact with me, put one finger up in the air (no, not the middle) and walked away with a smile. I of course, thought she was telling me she’d be back. Well, she came back and did it again, mind you she was really, really nice about everything. I finally wrapped up, and she even allowed me to take a quick video and photo. It helped that I was the last interview. Next time for sure, I’ll be more aware of the time. Later I found that I didn’t go over, but they were running a little behind which was a little relieving on my part.
8. Bring some backup. If I learned anything at all, it is this. I should say, “keep your kids away from your stuff!” I borrowed Daddy’s digital recorder and learned to use it the day of the interview. It seemed simple enough, push here, play there. Well, after the interview I had no idea how to lock the darn thing so I was carrying it around like a fragile diamond. I set it down for two seconds, Pinky comes up, pushes a button…I look and the recorder basically tells me that there are ZERO recordings. I naturally start freaking out, drive all the way back to Daddy’s work and tell him what happened. I thought I was doomed. My first interview and I screwed up! But Daddy came to my rescue, he pushes a few buttons and says, “she just moved it to another folder.” Oh I was so relieved! You just don’t know. So the lesson here, just be careful with your recordings, your devices, know how to use them properly beforehand, and if possible bring more than one, just in case. Bring batteries and chargers to. You never know what will happen.

So there you have it…lessons from a mom on how to prepare and interview a celebrity! I hope this proves to be helpful to some of you one day.

Thank you San Diego Bargain Mama for sending me out on this mission! Thank you also to Terry Hines & Associates for arranging and hosting the one-on-one interviews at the Se Hotel in downtown San Diego.  A special shout out to Dulce Tello, you ROCK!

Please do me a huge favor and read the full interview with Jordana Beatty and Megan McDonald here! Share it with your friends if you feel so inclined!

Finally, don’t forget to catch Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer movie in theaters NOW!

And here’s a shout out from the girls to TEAM SDBM!’