The Playboy interview became a regular feature of the magazine in 1962 and set a high standard for periodical journalism. [1] [2] AP News called the feature "models of the art form", stating that "Playboy's long and searching conservations are remarkable for the people who spoke to the magazine and for what they said." [3] Booklist called the Playboy interview "the gold standard for in-depth discussion with leading cultural figures". [4] [5]
The conversations with artists, athletes, business leaders, and political figures have been referenced by mainstream publications such as AP News, Billboard , CNN, Los Angeles Times , The Paris Review , Slate , Time , Variety , Vice , and The Washington Post as a benchmark for in-depth interviews. Publishers Weekly commented on the feature's ability to go further than a normal magazine interview: "Since the interviews have no length restriction, interviewers are able to probe deep into their subjects and allow them to ramble expansively." [6]
The Los Angeles Times described the subjects as coming from "all across the cultural spectrum: entertainment, politics, literature", calling them "open-ended, sprawling, a kind of 'Charlie Rose Show' of the printed page", [7] and Playboy's format served as inspiration for Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner when he designed his own magazine's approach to interviews. [3]
The Playboy interview with candidate Jimmy Carter is regarded by many to have influenced the 1976 presidential election, [8] and the interview with John Lennon before his death (later published as a standalone book) is referenced in several retrospective articles by other media. [9] [10] Playboy's interview with pop singer Azealia Banks caused controversy for her open criticism of the American public. [11] [12]
Selected interviews have been published as mass-market collections, including The Playboy Interview (1981) [13] and The Playboy Interview Volume II (1983). [14] In 1992, a large-format book The Playboy Interview: The Best Of Three Decades 1962-1992, was released with a foreword by CBS journalist Mike Wallace. [15]
Dark Horse published five collections of the interviews from 2006 to 2008: "The Comedians", "Movers and Shakers" (business), "The Directors", "Larger Than Life" (high-profile celebrities), and "They Played The Game" (sports). [16] In a review of this series, the Directors Guild of America said, "The Playboy face-to-face encounter is remarkable", and "the lengthy, in-depth interviews are well researched and more penetrating than standard-issue media chatter." [17]
The following people have been featured in Playboy magazine as the subject of the full-length interview or the 20Q (Twenty Questions) section.
January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2010 | Interview | Sean Combs | John Mayer [68] | Sarah Silverman | Matthew Fox | Michael Savage | Cameron Diaz | Cornel West | Paul Reubens | Josh Brolin | Robert Downey Jr. | Conan O'Brien | |
20Q | Guy Fieri | Shaun White | Will Forte | B. J. Novak | Russell Brand | Stephen Moyer | Michael Cera | John Varvatos | William Shatner | Zach Galifianakis | Olivia Wilde | ||
2011 | Interview | Frank Gehry | Lamar Odom | Deepak Chopra | Helen Thomas | Barney Frank | Lawrence O'Donnell | Justin Timberlake | James Franco | Steve Buscemi | Paul Rudd | Anthony Bourdain | Craig Ferguson |
20Q | Chloë Sevigny | Aziz Ansari | Seth Green | Josh Radnor | Ed Helms | Louis C.K. | Jason Sudeikis | Bryan Cranston | Amber Heard | Gordon Ramsay | Rashida Jones | Kaley Cuoco | |
2012 | Interview | Chris Wallace | Paul Krugman | Jon Hamm | David Brooks | Tom Cruise | Charlie Sheen | Richard Dawkins | Lee Child | Stephen Colbert [69] | Quentin Tarantino | ||
20Q | |||||||||||||
2013 | Interview | Matt Damon | Jimmy Kimmel | Clive Davis | J. J. Abrams | Ai Weiwei | Sean Hannity | Tony Robbins | Samuel L. Jackson | Bernie Sanders [35] | Ray Kelly | ||
20Q | |||||||||||||
2014 | Interview | Ben Affleck | Nick Denton | Stan Lee | Tony Hsieh | Jonah Hill | Gary Oldman [70] | James Spader | David Fincher | Brian Schweitzer | Joaquin Phoenix | ||
20Q | Patton Oswalt | Ty Burrell | Iggy Pop | Kate Mara | Kevin Hart | Marc Maron | Frank Miller | Bob Corddry | David Walton | Charlie Day | |||
2015 | Interview | Joaquin Phoenix | Vince Vaughn | Dick Cheney, Azealia Banks [11] | Bill Maher | Reza Aslan | Jeremy Renner [71] | Sanjay Gupta | Joseph Gordon-Levitt | Christoph Waltz | Bryan Cranston | ||
20Q | |||||||||||||
2016 | Interview | Ron Howard | Rachel Maddow | Don Cheadle | Ray Kurzweil | Trevor Noah | Ta-Nehisi Coates | Andy Samberg | Jason Dill | Michael Hayden | Billy Bob Thornton | ||
20Q | |||||||||||||
2017 | Interview | Matthew McConaughey | Scarlett Johansson | Ezra Klein | Christopher Nolan | Patton Oswalt | Chelsea Handler | ||||||
20Q | |||||||||||||
2018 | Interview | Christie Hefner | John Krasinski | Cecile Richards | Kathy Griffin | Michael Shannon | Tucker Carlson | ||||||
20Q | Cillian Murphy | Jesse Plemons | Jim Jefferies | Lakeith Stanfield | Sofia Boutella | Charlie Cox | |||||||
2019 | Interview | Sam Harris | Seth Ambramson | Tarana Burke | Jeremy O. Harris | ||||||||
20Q | |||||||||||||
2020 | Interview | Christiane Amanpour | Jameela Jamil | -- | |||||||||
20Q |
Hugh Marston Hefner was an American magazine publisher. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine, a publication with revealing photographs and articles. Hefner extended the Playboy brand into a world network of Playboy Clubs. He also resided in luxury mansions where Playboy Playmates shared his wild partying life, fueling media interest.
Playboy is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and online since 2020. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother.
Sergio Aragonés Domenech is a Spanish-Mexican cartoonist and writer best known for his contributions to Mad magazine and creating the comic book Groo the Wanderer.
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Frank Miller is an American comic book artist, comic book writer, and screenwriter known for his comic book stories and graphic novels such as his run on Daredevil, for which he created the character Elektra, and subsequent Daredevil: Born Again, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, Sin City, and 300.
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Oh My Goddess!, or Ah! My Goddess! in some releases, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kōsuke Fujishima. It was serialized in Kodansha's seinen manga magazine Monthly Afternoon from September 1988 to April 2014, with its chapters collected in 48 tankōbon volumes. The series follows college sophomore Keiichi Morisato and the goddess Belldandy who moves in with him in a Buddhist temple; after Belldandy's sisters Urd and Skuld move in with them, they encounter gods, demons and other supernatural entities as Keiichi develops his relationship with Belldandy. The manga series has been licensed for English-language release by Dark Horse Comics.
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Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book, graphic novel, and manga publisher founded in Milwaukie, Oregon, by Mike Richardson in 1986. The company was created using funds earned from Richardson's chain of Portland, Oregon, comic book shops known as Pegasus Books and founded in 1980.
Gary Leonard Oldman is an English actor and filmmaker. Known for his versatility and intense acting style, he has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, three British Academy Film Awards, and nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards. His films have grossed over $11 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing actors of all time.
Benny Golson was an American bebop and hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger. He came to prominence with the big bands of Lionel Hampton and Dizzy Gillespie, more as a writer than a performer, before launching his solo career. Golson was known for co-founding and co-leading The Jazztet with trumpeter Art Farmer in 1959. From the late 1960s through the 1970s Golson was in demand as an arranger for film and television and thus was less active as a performer, but he and Farmer re-formed the Jazztet in 1982.
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