The Assembly changes the rules for celebrity interviews

In our time is a world class seminar every week. Why was Jeremy a lonely snail? What were lines doing in York in the third century? I'm Misha Glenny and every week I'm joined by expert guests to explore the ideas that shape our world. It's one of the first times really that you consistently see someone painting teeth. I know that sounds bonkers. If I was going to define mathematics, I would say it's the study of structure. In our time, listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a cbc podcast. Listen, for celebrities doing live Q&As with fans is a part of their gig, but they often struggle through those. You can tell it's not their favorite part of the job. The assembly changes things up. There is no interview show that's like it. The interiors are all autistic or neurodivergent and no topic is off the table. My name is Aluminum Ahmad and this is commotion. I got Sarah Ty Black here. I got Sarah Kirchak here. Hello to both of you. Hello. Nice to have you on the show. This is a real Sarah's supremacy situation. So I'll be using full names or maybe initials. That's how we're going to get through this. Okay, first, I want to start with you, Sarah Ty. The assembly just came back for its second season in Canada. For a person who's maybe never seen the assembly. Do you just want to explain what the format of the show is? What does it do? I think this set itself is super important. And it tells you what the show is in terms of like literally setting the scene. There's no fluorescent lighting. There's this beautiful, beautiful natural light instead. Nice wide open space. Lots of folks wearing noise canceling headphones, even fidget toys. So the studio is really built around these interviewers that we come to come to know their access needs instead of the other way around, which is really where. Usually neurodivergent folks were the ones having to adapt to the room at our own expense. So essentially, there's one celebrity and over 30 neurodivergent interviewers, some of who are autistic, including verbal folks, some not verbal folks. There's no publicists. There's no band questions or topics. That kind of like expected PR machine of the celebrity interview is just gone. And what's left and said, I think it's something that's really human. And feels like a real compensation. And there's no chicken wings and there's no puppies. And it's not that I don't like those things on their own. But maybe an interview should be an interview. First of all, take that hot ones. You know, there's no chicken wings. Got it noted. I do want to frame a little bit of the history of the assembly, CRK. I have a concept of the assembly dates back to this French show. That showed debut in 2022. Since then, you've had these versions of the show that showed up in the UK, in Australia and in Spain. How does a Canadian version of the assembly differ from those other versions? So I'm aware of most of them. I've more watched the UK and Australian ones in preparation for the debut of the Canadian version last year. And a lot of them follow a similar format. However, the Australian one actually has a bit more structure to it, where they actually have neurodivergent journalism students. And this is their paid internship that they're appearing on this show. And the show also includes a little more behind the scenes stuff, where you can see them learn who the guests will be. Go through the process of learning how to research, how to formulate questions. You're showing that part. Yes. And how to actually present them in the final product. As a journalist and as a nerd, I really enjoyed seeing how the sausage was made. And as someone who has just this genuine belief that pop culture can play a role and better understanding for neurodivergent people, I think it was really important to see that they were working on this behind the scene. That they were learning a skill because it is a skill. I mean, anyone who has sat through a fan Q&A after a screening. Or at any kind of conference is aware that most people are not born with a natural gift for asking a famous person a question that will be relevant and interesting to other people. So we see them learn that and we also see them navigate the skill they're learning within a context that is sort of another neuro-typical social structure that resembles the neuro-typical social structure of a casual conversation, but it's actually its own beast that has its own largely unwritten rules. It's the whole conversation, yeah. So I think it was really fun to see that. And I do feel the loss of that in both the UK and the Canadian shows. I'm sure it's happening behind the scenes. It's certainly represented in how well the cast are doing. And the cast have been, you know, formerly wonderful. It's been wonderful to watch them throughout every version of the show. But I would like for audiences to see more of the work that goes into it and give them credit for that. Yeah, I think like the idea of like being shown how to prepare for something like this, I would be so deeply fascinated by that process. Sarah Ty, what makes this an intriguing premise, you think, for a celebrity interview show? You've already said maybe not the chicken wings show, you know, that's not the thing for you. But what makes this premise an interesting kind of premise? Yeah, I'll admit as a neurodivergent person myself, I came in equal parts wary and excited, especially people maybe interview celebrities the way that I might do in a similar way, for instance, like at the opening scenes where the celebrity arrives, has this plucky score in the first minute. And I was like, oh my god, no, please don't love on the spectrum us. Like, are we going to be comedic fodder? Like, are we going to be like, ah, you know, I think that a lot of neurodivergent folks know that wearing as well. And like, if someone's going to make fun of my Larry David ass life, it's going to be you know what I mean? But I think the show is really asking these questions that nobody asked with which Sarah kind of touched on, which is who wrote the rules of these conversations? Who do these rules serve? And what kind of work of other individual same rules do? Because again, I think like the standard interview, the celebrity interview is this battle machine that doesn't really have much to do in terms of losing the needle. You know, nobody worth their salt ever really wants to ask what drew you to this role? And nobody worth their salt really ever wants to answer it. It feels very transactional. And I think that audiences can feel that a lot of the time. Yeah. So here I think it's interesting that neurodivergent folks get to decide what's worth asking. And I also like to push back against in season one, Russell Peters mentioned that he's excited to be surrounded by people with no filter. And I think as Sarah also mentioned, that framing undersells the work that the interviewers are doing that neurodivergent people do. We don't just blur. Sometimes we blur. I've learned all the time all the time on the show. We have interest. We have judgment. We have discernment alongside that. And I think the real difference is that many of us don't approach interviewing to be this performance would be the unsaid rules. And I also like that the episodes can kind of go either way in terms of being a study of human interaction and humanness. You know, the season two opens with Hudson Williams. Not that much risk for someone who's popular. Season one opens with how we meddle. This guy, this guy's got star power. You know, Russell Peters, as I've mentioned, we went places and I'm not sure I wanted to go there. But I think that range shows us that humanness. And I think that's kind of the ethos of the show overall. I won't turn the rest of this conversation into my disagreement over the amount of risk that Hudson Williams has. But I do, before we get to, I do want to play a clip of that episode. Before I do, I just want to just, you started that answer by using the phrase don't love on the spectrum us. And I just want to just ask you a little bit what that means because I feel like let's a useful comparison. Maybe like the idea of like the assembly is doing different work than what love on the spectrum is. Yeah. I think I mean, there's lots of shows that fall into those traps of neurodivergent representation where we're kind of just fodder for neuro-typical audiences to laugh at or to figure out like a puzzle or some kind of logic game. Then instead of centering, you know, our interiority and our wants and our needs, we become this novel peculiarity. And I think that this show, I can feel the intention behind it and it's not that. Right. Love on the spectrum I should also note is a dating show. You know, and you've used got that plucky score as you're watching the thing. Yes, it's all about like the social gaps of like interrelational behavior and especially when like love is involved in how awkward that can get. So let's return us back to the assembly. I do personally believe that Hudson Williams has plenty of res. Let's just play a little bit of the premier episode where the guest on that episode is heated rivalry zone Hudson Williams. Hi Hudson. It's nice to meet you. Let's meet you, Nate. My question for you is about your friendship with Connor story. I know you and Connor have a very close friendship. Did you ever feel something for Connor that was more than friendship? No, quickly me and Connor were realized we were like platonic soulmates. Just completely in love with each other. I think that's what made our friendship so stable and beautiful is that we realized we could be completely ourselves be completely guard down. Sarah, this is a guy. Hudson Williams is there's been no shortage of Hudson Williams. He's been readily available in many different interviews. When you watch that episode of the assembly, do you feel like you got a different perspective on him through the questions he was asked on the assembly? I think we got a little bit of a taste of it and more importantly, I think it's a really great note to start this season on. Obviously, it's going to get eyes onto a domestic Canadian show that otherwise wouldn't be on it because Hudson's on it. But also, maybe let's call it a very subtle neurodivergent risk he has that he was able to display in this more relaxed setting. I thought the way that he engaged with the cast was a great note for anyone who's watching the show to interact with the show on, you know, in the plucking music that Sarah Ty brought up at the beginning. During that part of the segment, you can start to see that Like, I don't think he's being condescending, but sometimes when people who maybe aren't familiar with the greater neurodivergent community and different meat, access needs, different ways of speaking, presenting, meet these people for the first time, there is a little bit of a voice that you will hear when they talk to babies and puppies that creeps in. And he does start with a little bit of that tone, but it evaporates very quickly as he starts to interact with people as actual human beings in this show, and that by the time we get to a non-speaking person who's communicating with him via AAC, there's none of that left. He's just like, "Oh, cool," like he is genuinely connecting with a human being and approaching it through honest curiosity and talking to an equal of some sort, so it was really nice to see that, to get that glimpse into him as well, and of course he's not completely foreign to the concept. He himself is neurodivergent, and his dad is autistic, and they talk about that in the show as well. You're talking about AAC on the show as well, yeah, he does, yeah. So just to be able to talk about his own neurodivergence, his dad's, that's a lot of perspectives that aren't usually talked about in a frame where the other people who are also having the conversation will have some level of understanding, so I think it was really valuable to bring that to new audiences too. I also just really appreciate you going, "A voice that people speak with the puppies and babies," and then you got Sarah Tag going, "Yeah, that part." Sarah Tag, let me ask you, as you watch this episode, what struck you the most about watching Hudson feel those questions? I will say unlike pretty much every other homosexual person on this planet, I don't know much about Hudson Williams beyond pedicravory and its start image, so if you guys want to razz me on, say you guys know Riz, fine, I'll retract my comment, but this was my first introduction to him as a person, so it was interesting to find, watch him try to find his footing in this environment, in this format, and like Sarah said, he seemed a little uncertain at first, which is I think fair enough, and then watching get more comfortable as he got a sense of the people asking the questions, there was this warmth that developed over the interview that I really enjoyed. One thing I do think about this interview that's served to me is that I think the format can also lend itself intentionally or not to judging these interviews by how many intimate details we can get out of the interview, I'm thinking here of the Jan Arden episode in season one where she feels multiple questions about her brother, who was previously incarcerated first to the murder and with whom she has a really strange relationship, and I completely completely understand why someone will want to ask those questions and of course she knew the premise when she was signing on, but what I'm interested in is how much room a guest has to decide what they want to share, and I think agreeing to an open conversation doesn't necessarily mean knowing how you'll feel when a particular question comes up. So it was nice to see with Hudson that alongside that gradual change in how he was participating, the interview's curiosity in him seemed to give him something to respond to, and as he became more comfortable, there was this room for humor and reflection, and I liked being able to follow that process without particularly needing some very dramatic personal disclosure to make that conversation feel like it was impactful, so I really like that aspect. I mean, I think I want to hold on that idea for a moment, because if those conversations pivot or don't pivot on disclosure, on the level of disclosure you get from a person, and quite often celebrity interviews sometimes people measure those by the level of new information and by the level of uncomfortable disclosure that certain celebrities give, but when you watch this show Sarah, how it has made you reflect about your own experiences, as a writer with a lot of interviews, celebrities, a whole bunch, try to ask some questions, try to get something new out of them. Yeah, it's, um, well, for one thing, it is a little bit weird, I'll admit, to see something you've done for work, that at one point I probably would have considered my calling to do this, turned into a little bit more of a spectacle in an experiment, because I mean, it's great that there are people in that room who would not have had that opportunity otherwise for various reasons, but there are also a number of diagnosed, undiagnosed, diagnosed, but not open about it journalists who have been working for decades now, so it's not really the novelty that it might be presented as to an audience who isn't familiar with anything. I think also anyone who struggled when they were younger, who wants things to be better for new generations of people like them, will sympathize with the complicated mix of emotions I'm feeling here, because I am absolutely thrilled that the level of support, the platforms are here for the next generations of, you know, any neurodivergent person who might want to be in media, but I will also always be sad that that wasn't really available to me. I mean, in a lot of ways. There's a grief there. Yeah, there is a grief. My journalism career is very similar to my learning to navigate the world as an autistic person who didn't know she was autistic until I was 27. Right. I just showed up at a high school, interning at a music magazine, and on the first day I was already interviewing a band, I was just thrown in the deep end, so I learned to do all of this sort of on my own, not necessarily having a road map, and so there is going to be a part of me that wonders like, "Oh, who could I have been and what work could I have done if this was available earlier?" Or to be honest, even now, like 26 years in, I'm still struggling in a lot of ways, that probably could be eased by some kind of outside help, but that said, the cast members are absolutely running with the opportunities they're being given here, and I am so excited for them to have these opportunities. I'm also so excited for younger audiences to see that this is possible, and there are more supports in place to see all of this come together. Yeah, I'm interested in a couple of things that you said, first of all, you said diagnosed is undiagnosed, you're talking about different degrees of neurodivergence in journalists, but I just like that the modifier was undiagnosed journalist, and so I'm going to give that for the rest of the day. So I'm going to be undiagnosed journalist. When people talk about issues I have, I'm like, sometimes I don't know if it's that I'm autistic or that I'm a writer. I actually don't know which one is at work if it's particular. But I appreciate that in your answer, the thing that you were talking about is you watch a show and you actually see a version of infrastructure, right, a version of infrastructure and support for journalists who are like, if this is the thing you want to do, the path looks roughly like this, which is like the thing that you didn't have access to. Yes, although I will say I'm not completely bereft here. It has been exciting for me to watch all of these diverse neurodivergent people with different backgrounds, different takes on how they're going to do interviews, and start to like learn more about myself as an autistic journalist. It's so cool when someone frames a question the way I would. Like, oh yeah, I see how you've brought the context to this. I see how you're referencing, you know, other sources you have researched and that you're looking to expand this conversation or reframe it in some way. That's something I've always done naturally. I'm like, oh, maybe there is something to the wiring about it. It is, it is also a journey of self-discovery and a weird way. I mean, that's, first of all, the idea that you get all of that at the show. That's great to start talking. Let me ask you the same question. As you watch the show, like, how do you sort of feel like you're watching this show through the lens of you, yourself being a journalist and an interviewer who often has to sit down across from these folks and say, hey, you made a thing. Let's talk about the thing that you made. Mm-hmm. Well, as a hashtag on Daniel's Journalist, it made me feel less alone in a really nice way, you know, just like Sarah came up as a portable journalist, but I just say interview or I didn't go to journalism school. There's no map of these socially codified rules, these rules of speaking people the way that these boundaries are enforced. They had a big effect on me when I first started interviewing people and interviewing celebrities, especially. There's all these rules of interaction and relating to other people that no one really tells you about. You're just expected to know them. I don't know what school you guys went to. Don't learn them, but I apparently wasn't there, but especially when I started out my inability to keep up with those codes, it came down on me hard a couple times and everyone's normal still does, so to watch a space where sincere curiosity is the expectation and where access scenes are resource like Sarah said, I enjoyed that. I read that producers spent months with community learning everyone's support needs, access needs and what we see on screen is actually hours worth of conversation. So again, I think that access is often an unpaid ask, but here it's like a huge part of the production model and I think the TV gets better for that. That whole philosophy that care as infrastructure, I love seeing that kind of work in labor on screen. And the heart of the show isn't that these folks are actually just saying anything. It's that like Sarah said, it's like these interviewers are genuinely wanting to know the answers to the questions that they're asking in their minds or tracing those routes in such interesting ways that sometimes we are on my own. As an interviewer now, I still manage myself. I still mask. I still fail to mask. I go on too long. I interrupt. All the time on this show, sometimes I'm too honest with someone I don't really know, but with the assembly on this show, that's like that way of being and so many other ways of being. It's not a moral failure, which we're so often made to feel it is. It's, you know, it's the heart of the show and that feels nice. In a world where the news feels bigger, louder and harder to make sense of, Canadians need more than headlines. Hi, I'm Karen C. Olin, news reporter and host of the big story podcast from world shaping events to the everyday stories that spark debate. My team and I will explain what matters and why it matters to you. We're here to help you make sense of the news and give you the context you need for those kitchen table conversations, trusted, Canadian focused, curious. Listen to the big story wherever you get your podcasts. I mean, I think you guys are sort of detailing the ways that this show can reveal an infrastructure that exists that maybe like people are not necessarily aware of, and I think that's a really valuable thing. I want to talk about maybe as a place to land this conversation, Sarah, when you look at the entire landscape of all the celebrity interview complex, and there are so many of them, and only some of them involve hot wings, Sarah, Ty. But what do you think makes the assembly a valuable addition to that large tapestry? I think everything I have to say on this matter is something Sarah Ty has brought up in some degree or other already, from the fact that a lot of the like celebrity interviews we see right now are very structured in some way. So we'll still have the big outlets to maybe do a huge in-depth profile, but beyond that we have the gimmick interviews. So it is some form of chicken you're consuming or you're playing with puppies, or you're trying the snacks and the spirits of the world, while also translating things via dual ingo. So there's that gimmick, or then there's like the smaller independent outlets that are probably only getting five to eight minutes with a star, so you're cramming everything in. You've got to try to establish rapport. You're going to try to get all your questions in and get out in a very, very limited time frame. And this has opened things up in a way. Every time I watch this show, I think of the cut curb effect, basically the idea that a support or accommodation that is put in place for one population can end up benefiting more people at large. And I think all of the accommodations that have been put into this show to facilitate this more gentle, curious environment, even down to the sensory needs that are being accommodated, because everyone has sensory needs. It's a matter of whether or not they're disabling to you in your daily life that becomes more of an issue of neurodivergence. So it's probably even that is allowing the stars who come in to relax a bit more. And it's providing this whole environment that is allowing people who might not otherwise have the opportunity to get into journalism and interviewing people to have this opportunity. But it's giving entire audiences a totally different way to like connect with celebrities and learn something beyond what else is available now. So Tyler, let me ask you. I mean, I can imagine that folks will sit down to watch the show and go, "Oh, it actually never occurred to me that all the other celebrity interviews that have ever watched have been structured through the frame of neuro-tapicality until I sit down and watch the show." So what do you imagine a neuro-tapical person might sit down and take away from watching something like the assembly? Mm-hmm. I mean, I struggle sometimes with who representation is for and the implications of that. I think there's value in sharing and experience with people who haven't been invited into it before. I think perhaps beyond the obvious subject matter, what neuro-tapical folks might notice most who aren't familiar with the ways that neurodiverous minds and minds and bodies move and act in leaders and breathe and is they're editing? I think they're editing lingers on stimming, it lingers on bodies in motion. I think it throws a line sometimes, to be honest. But I think the intent, it leaves us. It throws a line between like too much, is that what you mean? Yeah, I think what's the line between pointing something out and underscoring it in a way that feels maybe exploitative? Right. I'm not sure. Which is also an issue with love on the spectruming. Yes. Yes, yes. And I think what comes through, however, is that the intention definitely feels like it's trying to showcase how neurodiversity and its lived material physical experience is one of the many, many ways to be in this world and to think as a person on this planet. I think the question that I like to pose is for the neurochippable viewer, just notice what you're responding to when you're watching this show. If it's the conversation wonderful, if it's widening your perspective of what bodies and minds are able to do either literally or figuratively and socially codified spaces in neurodiversity. That's great. If it's that, oh, how nice this celebrity is engaging with this non-verbal person, that's a really low bar. And I think the show is better than that bar. So what I would love to see in this upcoming season is getting to know the interviewers as people, because that was one of my favorite parts of season one is kind of returning. Lylexia, we don't need to rediscover every episode that autistic people are insightful. We know that. And I think that the richest version of that show acknowledges that first and then moves on. And I am really excited to see the interviewers back for season two and get to see what they decide what's worth asking. And yeah, I'm just gently cautious about when the narrative becomes how authentic we make a celebrity feel. And I think that what holds more import and integrity is who has power and control in a room and decides what's worth asking and what's okay to say and how it's okay to be. I'll tell you this. I fell a little bit of the show in season one and I'm absolutely going to be watching season two. Just based on your sort of boomerang around all the other versions. I'm definitely going to go find out what's going on with this Australian version. Really curious about this. In the meantime, I really got to say thank you to both of you for coming on the show. This has been very lovely. Thanks so much for doing this. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Sarah Ty Black is a film critic for the Global Mail, CBC Arts and right here on commotion. They joined us from Vancouver. Sarah Kurchek is the author of "Work It Out" and I overcame my autism and all I got was this lousy anxiety disorder she was right here with me in our Toronto studio. You can watch the assembly Sunday nights at 9 p.m. on CBC or stream it on a CBC gem. Look out for the upcoming episodes. You got J Barrishel. You got Zach El Fennakis. You got lights and more. I'll look before I let you go. I just want to acknowledge its Remembrance Day across this country. For me personally, I'm going to be spending some of this time reflecting on the fact that we get to live in such a peaceful, uncreative country and that has come at a cost. People have sacrificed their lives for this and I'm going to be spending some time thinking about that today. I hope that you're able to create some space to do the same thing. I'm El Amine Abdelmaid Mood. This is commotion. We'll see you tomorrow.