Written by Herb Jackson Jr
One of my favorite things about hosting 5 Minutes with Herb is the incredible chances I get to speak to some of the best working actors of the moment.
I’ve been lucky enough to interview some amazing actors from some of my own personal favorite TV shows, getting a deep insight into how they work, who they are, and advice for fellow up-and-coming actors.
Choosing the right guests for my show is a long process. Not only do I want to pick people who I will be able to learn from and have an interesting conversation with, but I also want to think about the kinds of people my audience would be interested in hearing from.
Here’s how I choose the best guests to feature on my show.
Selecting my guests
For me, the past two seasons of my show have been all about talking to as many actors as possible.
As an actor myself, my show has provided me with an excellent opportunity to learn from some of the best in the business.
I choose actors from TV shows or movies that I enjoy and particularly focus on people that I think I can gain experience or insight from.
How I reach out to guests
Reaching out to guests is simple, I have a list of actors that I am interested in speaking to and one by one I start to contact them.
Sometimes they don’t respond – which is fine! – but I’ve also been extremely lucky to talk to many of the actors that I’ve reached out to.
How I plan my conversations
I don’t go into every episode hoping for something particular out of my guests – this would totally disrupt the natural flow of the conversation.
I genuinely enjoy talking to and learning from my guests, so I like to focus on having a personal one-on-one conversation where I get to know a little about them, their acting journey, and more about some of the characters that they’ve created.
Towards the end of the interview, I like to get into a lightning round where I’ll ask a series of rapid-fire questions to finish off our conversation.
I will try to mix in questions about their fictional characters and reality, focusing on certain topics and questions that I think will get interesting or insightful reactions out of them.
Tags: podcast, podcast tips, podcast advice, actors, acting
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