That Sandra Huller Interview Puts Dude-Bro Journalism in the Hot Seat

This weekend social media, or at least Twitter (sorry, never calling it X), was inundated with discussions about Collider's recent interview with Project Hail Mary star Sandra Huller. The interview, conducted by Collider's editor-in-chief Steven Weintraub, was standard for the site. Weintraub asked fairly simplistic questions and tangentially connected questions including what Huller's favorite Christopher Nolan movie was and whether she got to run with Tom Cruise while filming their latest movie Digger (a title Weintraub kept turning plural).

There were two loud schools commenting on the interview: those surprised at how bad the interview was and those saying this is always how Collider's interviews have been, particularly those run by Weintraub himself. I tend to fall into the latter category (full disclosure, I did write for Collider a few years back and was even offered a job there that I turned down). The site has employed some good people, but it's hard to see it as little more than a slightly well-respected hobbyist site. There's little journalism that happens there.

What surprised me was how irritated and angry people were by the interview. So much so that it became a trending topic on Twitter. But it speaks to so much of what's happening in entertainment journalism today, so let's break down why interviews like this are so bad, what people can do about it, and how it all ties back to (you guessed it) influencers.