Adam Driver is no stranger to being asked absurd questions. Photo: Reuters
Can somebody, anybody please ask Adam Driver a serious question?
Less than a month after Driver was asked a derisive question by a fan about his upcoming film Ferrari, the actor was asked another backhanded question last week – but this time by a well-known reporter.
In an interview with CNN journalist Chis Wallace that aired Friday (Dec 1), Driver was asked whether he accepts being compared to great actors such as Al Pacino and Jack Nicholson.
“That’s a nice comparison,” the Marriage Story star said to the host of Who’s Talking To Chris Wallace?
“The New Yorker has also called me a horse face, so I take (the comparisons) with a grain of salt,” Driver continued.
“I remember reading one reviewer (who said), ‘His agent probably doesn’t know whether to put him in a movie or the Kentucky Derby.’ So if you believe the good thing, you have to believe the bad thing. I try to not absorb anything.”
Then, Wallace flatly asked the 40-year-old if his appearance has been a “help or a hindrance” to his career. After looking a bit thrown by the inquiry, the actor delivered a thoughtful response.
“Well, I’ve worked consistently, which is nice, with people I’ve always dreamed that I wanted to work with,” he said. “I look how I look. I can’t change that. So I guess it helped me. Yeah, I don’t know.”
Driver then provided a cheekier answer: “A hindrance in only breaking mirrors wherever I go and having a misshapen, outsize body that I can’t fit through doorways or most clothes or fit into most cars. So apart from that, it’s been good.”
Wallace tried rephrasing the question by asking if Driver ever thought his career would be easier if he looked like Robert Redford. Driver responded in the way anyone might: “Who doesn’t want to look like Robert Redford?”
The Star Wars and Girls actor concluded his thoughts on the matter by simply adding, “I just kind of accepted this is how I look.”
Over the years, Wallace has gained a reputation for being one of the toughest interrogators on television – and he is well aware of it.
‘I take the line that somebody said from Vince Lombardi, ‘He doesn’t discriminate – he treats us all like dogs,’” he told The LA Times in 2016. “That’s my view on all politicians.” In a 2018 interview, Wallace asked Russian President Vladimir Putin why so many of his political opponents ended up dead, prompting an equally accusatory response from the controversial leader about the deaths of US political opponents.
Driver is no stranger to being asked absurd questions. Luckily for Wallace, the Oscar nominee was more measured on CNN than he has been when prompted by similar questions.
After a screening of the Enzo Ferrari 2023 biopic at Poland’s Camerimage Film Festival in November, Driver was asked by an audience member what he thought about the film’s crash sequences.
“What do you think about the crash scenes?” the attendee asked the House Of Gucci actor, as seen in a video captured on social media. “They looked pretty harsh, drastic, and I must say, cheesy, for me. What do you think?”
Driver curtly answered, “(Expletive) you. I don’t know. Next question.” – Los Angeles Times/Tribune News Service
