A celebrity profile promises something that is hard to resist: the sense of sitting across a table from someone you have only ever seen on a screen or a stage. The best ones deliver it. They are well observed, funny, occasionally revealing, and they leave you feeling that you have learned something true about a person. But a profile is also a made thing, with a purpose and a set of constraints, and reading one well means paying some attention to how it was made.
This is not an argument for cynicism. Plenty of profiles are honest and thoughtful, and plenty of subjects are generous and interesting. It is a suggestion that the most enjoyable way to read them is with your eyes open.
Start with why it exists
Profiles tend to appear for a reason, and the reason shapes the piece. Often there is a project to promote: a film, a series, an album, a book, a brand. That is not a scandal; it is the ordinary economy of publicity. Publications want access to interesting people, and the people want to reach an audience at a moment that matters to them. A profile is where those two interests meet.
The practical effect is that the timing of a profile is information. An interview that appears in the weeks before a release is part of a campaign, and both the writer and the subject know it. That does not mean the writing is dishonest, but it does mean that what is emphasised, and what is left out, may reflect the moment.
Access is the currency
Every profile involves a bargain about access. The writer wants time with the subject, and the subject, or the people around them, will often set conditions: how long the meeting lasts, where it takes place, which subjects are likely to come up. A writer who has been given a generous amount of time and an open setting has more to work with than one who has been given twenty minutes in a hotel room with a representative sitting nearby.
You can often see this in the text. Long, observational scenes, in which the writer watches the subject in ordinary situations, usually mean real access. A piece that relies on quotations from a single, short conversation, or on a series of carefully rounded statements, may mean less. Neither is automatically better, but the difference tells you how much the writer was able to see for themselves.
Look at the scene-setting
The opening paragraphs of a profile are not neutral. The choice of venue, the description of what the subject is wearing, how they greet the writer and what they order are all ways of establishing a character before they have said anything. Skilled writers use these details to create a view of the subject, whether warm, wary, funny or guarded.
It is worth asking what the details are doing. A description that makes the subject seem unusually down to earth is a choice. A description that emphasises how guarded they are is another. Neither is untrue, but both are framing, and noticing the frame helps you to separate what is observed from what is implied.
Read the quotations carefully
Quotations are the heart of a profile, and the place where readers are most easily misled. A few things are worth remembering.
- A quotation is a selection. Even a verbatim quote has been chosen from a longer conversation, and edited for length, clarity and rhythm. It is not the whole of what was said.
- Context is not always visible. A remark that reads as bold or revealing may have been a response to a prompt that the article does not show.
- Beware of the quote that sums everything up. The line that appears in a headline or standfirst is chosen because it makes a neat summary, and it may be more tidy than the conversation was.
- Notice who is speaking. A statement attributed to the subject’s representative is not the subject’s own words, and a remark from “a friend” or “a source close to” them is a different kind of evidence.
Who else is in the piece
Profiles often include voices other than the subject’s: colleagues, collaborators, directors, friends. They add colour, and they serve a function. Someone who has worked with the subject will usually have a good reason to speak well of them, and the people most readily available to a writer are often the people the subject’s team is happy to supply.
That does not make their comments worthless. It makes them a particular kind of source. When a piece includes a critical or complicating voice, it is worth noticing, because they are rarer and often more informative.
The shape of the story
Profiles tend to follow a small number of shapes, and recognising them helps you read past them. There is the comeback, in which someone has been out of view and returns. There is the reinvention, in which a person known for one thing is revealed to be interested in another. There is the “real person behind the image” piece, which promises to cut through the persona. These are not dishonest, but they are conventions, and the conventions can produce a tidier story than real life tends to supply.
Be especially alert to the revelation. When a profile appears to deliver a startling confession or a rare moment of vulnerability, ask how it fits into the whole piece, and whether it is the kind of thing that was likely to be offered in that setting. Sometimes it is a genuine moment. Sometimes it is a well-judged piece of publicity.
What is not there
It is just as useful to notice what a profile does not include. Are there questions that obviously could have been asked? Is there a period of the person’s career that is skipped? Is the subject’s work discussed in detail, or only their personality? Absences are not always evidence of anything, since space is limited and writers must choose. But a profile that is entirely smooth, with no friction anywhere, is telling you something about the conditions in which it was produced.
How to enjoy them anyway
None of this need spoil the pleasure. A profile can be a good piece of writing even when it is also a piece of publicity. A few habits keep the enjoyment and add some perspective:
- Check the date and the occasion. What is being promoted, and when?
- Judge the access. How much did the writer see, and for how long?
- Separate observation from interpretation. Which parts did the writer see, and which are inferences?
- Weigh the quotes. Remember that a selection is not the whole conversation.
- Note the absent. What would you want to know that the piece does not say?
A note on respect
There is one more consideration, which is about the people in these pieces. Celebrities are not characters; they are individuals, and the best profiles treat them as such, without either flattery or contempt. A reader who approaches a profile with curiosity, and who is willing to hold two thoughts at once, that the subject is a real person and that the piece is a constructed one, is likely to get the most out of it.
This article is general commentary on how celebrity profiles are produced and does not refer to any specific individual or publication.
