Adam Driver Walked Out of NPR Interview Because He Can’t Listen to His Acting — Report
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An episode of NPR’s “Fresh Air” featuring Adam Driver was scheduled to air this month, but host Terry Gross surprised viewers when she announced last week’s episode would instead be a re-run of an interview with Conan O’Brien. “[We] had promised you an interview with actor Adam Driver today, but unfortunately, we weren’t able to do it as planned,” Gross told listeners. According to a report from The Daily Beast, Driver’s “Fresh Air” interview was canned after the actor walked out of the discussion. Driver was on “Fresh Air” to promote “Marriage Story” but left “after expressing displeasure at the idea of listening to a clip of himself singing ‘Being Alive’ from the musical ‘Company,'” according to a source.
Driver has long been resistant to watching or listening to his acting work. The actor appeared on “Fresh Air” in 2015 and told Gross, “I’ve watched myself or listened to myself before, then always hate it. And then wish I could change it, but you can’t.” Driver said something similar to The New Yorker in October, revealing that watching himself as Kylo Ren at the “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” premiere made him sick to his stomach.
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A source close to “Fresh Air” told The Daily Beast that Gross and her team were aware Driver “prefers not to listen to recordings of himself and encouraged him to remove his headphones while any clips played back.” Danny Miller, the program’s executive producer, confirmed that Driver left the interview “while we were playing back a clip from the film.” Driver was conducting his part of the interview in New York City, while Gross was in Philadelphia.
“We don’t really understand why he left,” Miller said in an email to The Daily Beast. “We were looking forward to the interview — Terry thinks he’s a terrific actor, he was a great guest when he was on [‘Fresh Air’] in 2015 — so we were disappointed that we didn’t have a new interview to share with our listeners about ‘Marriage Story.’”
Driver has earned Golden Globe and SAG Award nominations for Best Actor thanks to his role in the Noah Baumbach-directed Netflix drama. The movie is now streaming on Netflix. IndieWire has reached out to Driver’s representative for further comment.
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