Adam Driver

[luckylexie]

I don’t give a shit either way, but I see it as Terry Gross not respecting Adam’s clear boundaries. If that’s something he’s asked all interviewers not to do, and then she does it anyway...? Why does he have to sit there and politely take it? She can fuck off. He might be paid a ton of money to act in a movie, but the dude still gets some say about how he wants to preserve his sanity/perspective on a role he’s wrapped up.

[Mutagen]

I do not think I've ever seen a promotional interview where a clip of whatever the celebrity is promoting wasn't played, though?? To me that's like walking off Jimmy Kimmel because you're upset there's a studio audience. It's an ingrained aspect of that interview format, I don't think it's some unique evil that Terry Gross visited upon him. And there was an attempt to accommodate him by indicating he could take off his headphones.

If Adam Driver has anxieties or phobias then I respect that and wish the best for him, but I also agree with those saying a woman would never get away with this.

[ladyboy]

I should send this to Ask a Manager... if it IS a true phobia and he can’t watch or listen to himself, would this be covered by the ADA? How would they handle an accommodation for something like this? Are there points where the ADA throws up its hands and is like, look, we can’t accommodate THAT, you need to do something different altogether for your career?

(I’m answering my own question, but I guess there is. A friend has a degenerative eye disease and is slowly going fully blind. They work in a visual field. Obviously there will be a point where they simply cannot perform the work they do and will go out on disability.)

[Ginger]

Mar 6, 2005 20:00:26 GMT -4 ladyboy said:

I should send this to Ask a Manager... if it IS a true phobia and he can’t watch or listen to himself, would this be covered by the ADA? How would they handle an accommodation for something like this?

If this were an ADA matter, NPR would be 100% in the right. They made a full accommodation of his "disability"/"phobia".

The sound engineer cued him ahead of time to take his headphones off before the audio clip played, which he did. The sound engineer was going to cue him again when it was safe to put his headphones back on, but he had walked out. At no point was he asked to see or hear a clip of himself, and he didn't.

A real person in the real world with an actual disability/phobia (which Adam Driver does not appear to have), would be fired if they just got up and left their workplace over something like this. "Reasonable accommodations" are required by the ADA; coddling temperamental prima donnas is not.

[lordofthefries]

I wonder how Adam Driver turns on Netflix. Mine auto-plays the Marriage Story trailer every time.

[Ginger]

Dec 20, 2019 10:37:20 GMT -4 lordofthefries said:

I wonder how Adam Driver turns on Netflix. Mine auto-plays the Marriage Story trailer every time.

Mine doesn't play the trailer, but I have to see his big homely face on the Marriage Story icon every time I open Netflix, which is mildly traumatic to me.

[Ladybug]

Dec 20, 2019 10:37:20 GMT -4 lordofthefries said:

I wonder how Adam Driver turns on Netflix. Mine auto-plays the Marriage Story trailer every time.

There's allegedly a way to turn that feature off, but I haven't figured it out yet!

If this were a Reddit thread on Am I the Asshole? it would be "AITA for walking out of an interview after the interviewer played a clip of my movie when I expressly asked her not to?" And my response to that would be "ESH" Everyone Sucks Here. He needs to grow a pair or get therapy or do whatever he needs to do, and she needs to respect the reasonable requests (and I believe it is reasonable) of her guests. Just add the clip in in post production! This is a mutually beneficial relationship here, she gets show content and he gets to plug his movies, and they need to work together for the best outcome. Not undermine the guest, and not act like a diva.

If an actress did this, she'd be crucified. Oscar campaign dunzo.

[dragonflie]

Wow - I think people here are being much too generous. A phobia?? Really?? And - I mean that is very kind and caring to try and imagine what the issue could be... but to me this is 100% diva behavior. As already mentioned he was given more than enough lee-way/accommodation.

Also- please :/

If he has an actual "phobia" (He doesn't- I will eat my left shoe if he does) that is like debilitating or something: sorry buddy you picked the wrong profession. We aren't talking some obscure theatre actor - he has a starring role(that he auditioned for/signed up for) in freaking Star Wars! That's like me saying I want to be a marine biologist, then taking a job out at sea where part of the job is studying sea dwellers in their natural habitat, but saying I have a phobia of deep water so they have to accommodate me. WTF?

I think he is a super interesting actor- but this behavior makes me think he's also an a$$hole.

[Ginger]

Feb 10, 2006 17:47:02 GMT -4 Ladybug said:

Just add the clip in in post production!

I think this could be expensive and NPR is not awash in extra money. Shows are done the way they are done.

I'm reminded of Dancing with the Stars, where right before a contestant dances in front of millions of people on live TV, they have to watch the "package" that precedes their dance. Often, it's clips of themselves talking about personal traumas they have experienced (dead relatives, miscarriages, severe injuries), edited in as tear jerking a way as possible. They can't avoid it, because the clips are played to the live audience in the ballroom and are played LOUD. I've seen partners hug the contestants and cover their eyes and ears so they can try to avoid listening to the clip and getting emotional right before they have to dance. But they make do.

Mar 14, 2005 2:10:14 GMT -4 dragonflie said:

If he has an actual "phobia" (He doesn't- I will eat my left shoe if he does) that is like debilitating or something: sorry buddy you picked the wrong profession.

When my dad worked for the US government, he went out of his way to hire people with disabilities and got all kinds of awards for it, so he knew the ins and outs of the Americans with Disabilities Act and utilized it to its full capacity. At one point, he hired someone to do administrative work who had almost no use of his arms. The job involved typing at a computer. I have no idea how he made that work, but somehow he was able to provide the necessary accommodations.

The purpose of the ADA is to make it possible for disabled people function in the world and be able to hold down jobs so they can keep body and soul together.

It's a little bit offensive to me that a prima donna actor, who for untold reasons rudely rejected the accommodations that were made for his phobia-which-is-probably-not-really-a-phobia, is being lumped into the same category as people who truly need accommodations and don't have the choice to flounce off if everything is not 100% the way they want at all times.

[Deleted]

Dec 20, 2019 4:15:40 GMT -4 luckylexie said:

I don’t give a shit either way, but I see it as Terry Gross not respecting Adam’s clear boundaries. If that’s something he’s asked all interviewers not to do, and then she does it anyway...? Why does he have to sit there and politely take it? She can fuck off. He might be paid a ton of money to act in a movie, but the dude still gets some say about how he wants to preserve his sanity/perspective on a role he’s wrapped up.

Also, she knows it already, she's interviewed him before. He's talked before about hiding in the green room at Cannes rather than sit in the theatre and watch Blakkklansmen, everyone who follows him knows that he described himself as hyperventilating and wanting to throw up during a screening of The Force Awakens.

And the fucking gaslighting by the producer: "“We don’t really understand why he left", "We were looking forward to the interview, Terry thinks he’s a terrific actor, he was a great guest in 2015, so we were disappointed that we didn’t have a new interview to share with our listeners about Marriage Story". GTFO.

Also: Just add the clip in in post production! Exactly. It's a radio interview, for crying out loud. Why TF is it so important to include an audio clip of a motion picture??