14 DAY TRIAL // Amy Adams hosted Saturday Night Live over the weekend, to promote her new film with Christoph Waltz, “Big Eyes,” and she extended her stay in New York just so she could also tape a 4-minute interview with The Today Show on NBC. The network scrapped the entire thing because she told producers she wasn’t comfortable with being asked a question about the Sony Hack.
The reason she wasn’t ok with that was the fact that she had nothing to do with the whole thing, except for the fact that she starred in “American Hustle,” which was distributed by Sony and which was the subject of a few of the emails the hackers from Guardians of Peace leaked online after breaking into the company’s servers last month.
Still, Deadline reports, after voicing her objections, she was still willing to go on the show and even to answer the question in one form or another. So imagine her shock when she was told there would be no interview after all.
NBC says she was a diva, her people insist producers were just being lame
As Deadline stresses, there was really no reason why The Today anchors should have wanted to ask Adams about the Sony Hack, except for the fact that she starred in “American Hustle.” Bradley Cooper was also in that film and he was on the show shortly before Adams: yet no one asked him about the Sony Hack, he was simply allowed to promote his film, “American Sniper.”
Adams wanted to do the same, telling producers the interview was short already (4 minutes), so perhaps it would be best if they just focused on the film, especially since she had no reason to be talking about something that didn’t concern her directly.
On the other hand, producers are telling the media that she acted like a diva and tried to “dictate” to them what their show should be about. They scrapped the interview as she was in the orange room, getting ready to go in.
“Amy decided to speak up for herself and express her disappointment that Today would feel the need to ask her a question she did not feel comfortable, and rather than respect her opinion or continue the discussion, the reaction was to pull her appearance from the show,” a statement from the Weinstein Company to Deadline says.
Meanwhile, Adams is said to be very upset at the way she was “manhandled” by The Today producers and disappointed that they would scoop so low in an attempt to boost ratings by tackling a hot topic – one that, again, had nothing to do with her.
The Today is all about journalistic integrity
NBC is not taking this lying down, releasing their own statement to say that the decision to pull the interview altogether was all about journalistic integrity, which they refuse to compromise for the sake of just one actress, no matter how famous or beloved by the public.
“As a news program, the Today show doesn’t allow guests to dictate restrictions on interviews. In this case, after hours of discussion we felt uncomfortable with the demands being made and we determined the best course of action for all parties involved was to cancel the interview,” producers say.
The worst part of this is that this happened with one actress who has a reputation of being one of the nicest and most professional industry people right now. When you have someone like Amy Adams and try to blame a failed interview on her “diva” behavior, you’re bound to come out looking worse for wear – which is precisely what’s happening with The Today producers right now.
