Lara Lewington is a qualified journalist who can be seen daily presenting channel fives weather. She is also the news programmes celebrity reporter hot on the heels of showbiz gossip and is a regular interviewer of some of Hollywood's biggest stars.During a break from her busy schedule Lara talked to me about her career and what it is about celebs that we love so much.
Why did you choose journalism for your career?
Well I think, I did work experience, and I must have been about eighteen, for the first time in TV and I decide after doing it for the first time that TV was definately what I wanted to do.More so than newspapers and magazine?
Oh no that wasn't the case. I think, having decided initally that I wanted to work in television, that was very much what I was going for but gradually I developed interest in other areas of the media as well and realised that I wanted to work in newspapers and magazines to. I think to get the cross section of work in each is really good, they definately work for each other.What sort of things were you doing on your work placement?I was just doing a weeks work experience on it's a Knockout but because I was doing well in that week they
actually gave me a job as a runner, so I stayed on for six months to work on the whole series.
You are now a celebrity reporter, but you have worked in other areas such as factual programmes, is celebrity where you have always wanted to be?
Yeah, there has been quite a variety, but I think no being at five I present the weather everyday and I do their celebrity interviews, so I get the varity of presenting everyday but also going out and meeting lots of people and doing a cross section of stuff is fun.
What have been your best and your worst interviews?
It's hard when people ask me that it's always hard to pin-point the exact ones that have been good and bad. Cameron Diaz was great she is such a girls girl you felt like it was a really fun girly chat, she always makes you feel like you are sitting down talking to a friend which I always think you get the best out of a celebrity and they give the best impressions of themselves when it's like that. You just think why aren't they all this nice and chatty, so she's defintely one of my favourites.
Anne Hathaway is good as well because we gossiped about bargain clothes and stuff, which was fun. But I think that there are different people for different reasons. Like when I interviewed Jason Donovan, because I had loved him when I was about nine years old I had been such a fan, to go and interview someone when you are an adult that you just looked at as a kid and idolised that's always got a different element of excitement about it. But even when the interview isn't the greatest interview ever, but I have to say that Jason Donovon was very fun, it's still got that certain something to it that makes it fun.
And what is your worst?
The worst, my worst, my worst I'm not going to name any names but sometimes you get some stars who are a bit jetlagged, abit bored of doing interviews and sometimes they don't give their best and can be a little bit difficult. Bit it's rare that that happens.
When you are interviewing is there a certain line that you refuse to cross or will you ask a question that needs to be asked even if it is a bit controversial?
You have got to try. But sometimes you are actually stopped by publicists before hand and told you can and can't ask certian questions. And when you are told that in advance and a publicist is stood right in front of you obviously you have to do what you are told or they are going to jump in and stop you. But most of the time you are given the freedom to use your own judgement and if there's something that you want the answer to then you have got to try.
Is there anyone that you would like to interview that you haven't had the chance to?
I feel really lucky that I have interviewed such a variety of people and it still seems to be carrying on that way. People are so surprising that, I think, sometimes someone who you don't reallythink anything of turns out to be a great interviewee.I don't know I like the assortment I'm getting right now.
What do you think it is about celebrity gossip that is so appealing?
People are just fascinated by celebrity aren't they? It has probably changed a bit over the years because it used to be a matter of celebrities leading this dream life that was so distant from everything that we know, and we used to like to read about their world and how different it was.
But now we are seeing so many people who become famous through reality shows and so many people who we feel a re more like us, just ordinary people that have done good. But now it's seeing a transformation from someone who was working as a receptionist a few weeks ago, or doing any other everyday job, to suddenly being in the limelight and seeing the change in their lives.
So it's a mixture now, it's a mixture of looking at the people who's lives have been catapulted into fame and also the Hollywood stars who live in a different world to us.
You are in Superman Returns as a weather girl what was that like?
Well it was very funny. I was in the US with my boyfriend, who is a big Superman fan, so we went to the Chinese Theatre in LA to watch it. I had no idea that I was in it. When that scene was on the weather girl was like a blur in the background and I said 'that looks a bit like me' and as the screen got bigger I realised that it was me.
Have you any future plans for your career or are you going to stay with five for the forseeable future?
Yes I certainly hope to I have started doing quite a bit of writing along with it too. So I'm busy and enjoying it.
What writing have you been doing?
I have just started doing some property stuff for the Mail on Sunday, they are celebrity property features, so I'm going to celebrities houses. And I ave a weekly showbiz column in the Jewish Chronicle and I write stuff for the five website as well. You know I get up in the morning and I look forward to going to work and not many people can say that.
Helen Earnshaw