One of the Guest Whisperer guidelines for talk show appearances is to keep stories and pitches in the 30-to-60 second range.  This is partly because audiences are conditioned by the fast pace of shows to expect bite-sized nuggets.  Another reason is that short anecdotes keep the guest on track and moving forward.

Rules are made to be broken, of course and Luke Wilson has a Jimmy-Stewart-aw-shucks kind of persona that would feel straitjacketed in a rushed approach to guesting.  Yet I was still worried at first when he launched into a wandering story about shooting a movie at a girl’s college.  You could feel the natives in the bleachers getting restless.

But his laid back approach began paying off, though, as he pulled the audience into his ordinary-guy-in-a-star’s-world life with stories like the teamster driver who picked him up for an early morning shoot.  Wilson was dragging his feet, prompting the driver to admonish him with, “Look, I’ve driven Oliver Stone and Val Kilmer and I’m not in the mood for any of your B.S.!”  When he related how fans often accosted him with “Hey, you’re one of the Owens brothers, right?”, we know the universe is keeping his ego in check.

Promoting his new movie, Henry Poole Is Here, was a tough task, since it is a quirky little, low-key comedy-drama.  As Letterman noted: “A nice simple story – no explosions, no lasers, no Martians…”  At which point Wilson interrupted with “A lotta nudity, though!”  It broke Dave and the audience up, letting us know that the movie, like Luke Wilson, might have some surprises up its sleeve.

We have to hand it to James Franco – he did warn us right from the start.  He did his best to lower our expectations.  “I did one other talk show before this [that scintillating talkmeister] Tony Danza…I’m really nervous.”  But even that failed to prepare us for his scattered performance during an appearance to promote his new movie, Pineapple Express.

The ingredients were there.  He had a pocketful of great stories:

•    His grandmother named her dog Dave and decided to teach it Stupid Pet Tricks.
•    His parents hated the idea of him being an actor – now the whole family is in show business
•    In his struggling actor days, he worked at McDonalds and used to pick up girls by doing a fake Italian accents

All terrific stuff, but here was the BIG mistake: these stories were woefully under-rehearsed.  Even the best actors (and James Franco is a real pro) often fail to realize being a talk show guest is about performing.  It takes prep, people!  It’s hard work being naturally you, and just dredging up a few stories (however cute or funny) doesn’t cut it unless you rehearse.  And don’t depend on the show’s producers to get you up to speed – this is a task that should be tackled well in advance.

It’s all so hard on TGW because Franco is just so damn likeable!  He has the potential to be a great guest, once he focuses his anecdotes and gets some feedback (are you listening, managers, agents and publicists?) to help him gauge how his stories work.  We’ll certainly watch for him on his next outing.

What is with Kevin Costner?  He seemed so out of sorts on a recent episode of The Late Show with David Letterman. The words spacey, preoccupied, out of sync, on another planet come to mind. Aside from the fact that his hand was in front of his mouth playing with his beard most of the time, Costner just looked uncomfortable.

Costner and Letterman spent the first segment discussing wildlife as Costner elaborated on his penchant for killing fish (with a spear gun), “I’m a menace under the ocean.” They went on to talk about horses, rodeos, cats, bears and his recent wedding, which was more of an Outward Bound event than nuptial. There were a few laughs along the way, mostly provided by Dave.

After the break, Costner’s film Swing Vote was the topic of discussion. Being that Costner co- financed and produced the film (reportedly to the tune of $20 million), he obviously thinks quite highly of it.   “At the end of the day,” he proclaimed, “you know, it does exactly what I always hope a movie will do, you go out with a feeling you didn’t anticipate [having] going in.” He even compared it to his modern day classic, Field of Dreams.

Granted it’s not an easy transition from heartthrob to disheveled leading man/character actor, but Costner continues to work on it. I wish he would find that comfort level on the talk-show circuit (although, interesting enough, he was on Regis and Kelly the next morning and appeared much more at ease, with none of the relentless nervous habits.)

The twitchy, ill-at-east persona like the one Costner displayed on The Late Show will do little to protect his investment.

In 1996, readers of FHM voted Gillian Anderson the “Sexiest Woman in the World.”  Over a decade later, now 40 years old and sporting an admitted baby bump, Anderson is still major sexy, and she scored big in her Late Show appearance by making David Letterman look sexy, as well!

Although she began her career as a young actress with a punk edge, Anderson has always walked the line between rebellious counterculture icon and respected mature professional.  That balance was evident when she walked onto the Late Show stage, dressed in sleek taupe and black, but with stray wisps of hair escaping her do, looking both elegant and mom-like.  Flirty and irreverent from the start, she asked Dave if he was sucking up to her.  He denied it but, glancing at her b-bump, replied “It looks to me…”  “…like someone else has sucked up to me!?” she finished.  The big laugh that got paved the way for the story of how she and Dave had made out the last time she was on the show.  (A clip provided proof.)   “You didn’t write, you didn’t call,” pouted Anderson, while Dave blushed and ate it all up.

Anderson connected to the show’s ongoing comic campaign coverage with a story about meeting Bill Clinton on the campaign trail.  When Dave turned the focus back to her motherhood, she still kept him tightly in the circle of attention by asking about his being a father.  And she always maintained the flattering flirtatious edge to the banter.  Referring to her ex-pat residence in London, she rued, “After you rejected me, I decided I was going to move…countries.”  By the time a clip from “The X-Files: I Want to Believe” was shown, all it needed to provide was a reminder of her chemistry with David Duchovny; she had already won us over as a star.

How does a deft display of talk showmanship like this pay off?   Anderson’s presence was so memorable that when Simon Pegg came on after her (it’s always good to have a comedian as a closer), he and Dave spent the first part of his appearance talking about…Gillian Anderson!

It’s often thought that David Letterman just can’t handle an interview with a good looking guy.  Some have theorized that Dave is SOOOO uncomfortable with his own looks, it’s hard for him to relax when a good looking actor shows up on the couch.  But Aaron Eckart may have found the trick, and believe me it wouldn’t be any advice that I would give him — just act more nervous than Dave and all of your good looks will be forgiven.

That’s not to say that Eckart wasn’t lively, funny and overall entertaining.  He looked great, came prepared with good relateable stories for Dave, like one about a mutual rattlesnake issue that the two of them have on their Montana farms.  And he certainly did a fine job, within his madated restricted abilities to reveal story points from The Dark Knight, promoting his film.  But what was so distracting for most was his relentless figiting and almost zero eye contact with the host, that just made him visibly uncomfortable with the entire appearance.

This is however where the problem for The Guest Whisperer comes in.  I always stress the importance of knowing your audience when you sit down for an interview and in this case your primary audience is always Dave, as he can save or sink any performance on his show.  So if the mission is have a winning appearance and you aren’t blessed with the attributes of a flirtatious Julia Roberts — one of Dave’s all time favorites — you better go with what you’ve got.  Aaron, being a slightly insecure good looking and talented actor,  made the right choice — if he had one — to be himself and let Dave make him the butt of a few harmless jokes while at the same time coming off as an intelligent, relateable guy who served his producers well with a winning appearance.

Not a perfect plan, but one certainly good enough to get him invited back.

Jack Black knows how to make an entrance. Just watch him explode onto the David Letterman stage on his recent appearance – puffing his barrel-chest out, he worked the crowd, did a Kung Fu (Panda) inspired kick/turn and shed his black satin jacket, dropping it carelessly on the floor. He then proceeded to sit in the wrong chair…a nice, humorous cap to the wild antics. When Dave pointed out the mistake, Black shuffled like a reprimanded child, picking up his jacket (which, by the way, was now a gold satin jacket, having been turned inside out) and sitting in the proper spot. He went on to explain that his chest-puffing/gut-sucking-in was to test a new theory of his – that if you do something long enough, it will stay that way, like when you mother said “hey, don’t make that face all the time, it’s gonna stay like that.” When Dave asked how long he’d been trying it, Black said it was a brand new technique and then fondled his large pot belly until Dave asked him to stop “please quit playing with that!” Quite the opening salvo.
They went on to discuss his kids, his multi-colored hair (the result of a Ben Stiller film he just finished shooting) and a yak encounter he had, replete with photo.

I will say that I have never seen a talk show appearance where the object of the promotion (in this case Kung Fu Panda) was discussed as much as this. Dave kept going back to it and all aspects of it. They had clips of Black in the studio recording his voices, many of which he did live on the show, too. They even had a bit set up where he said a phrase live on the show and then had a clip of him saying the same phrase in the recording studio as if he had recorded it earlier. When they came back from the clip, he said “Yes! Nailed it.” Not sure it worked as well as they hoped, but they get an A for effort.

Jack Black is a force, full of unharnessed energy, crazy eyes, clever voices and delivery and sloppy, slangy speech, but he is prepared, funny, imminently watchable and, as Dave said in his introduction, “always entertaining.” That is true.

It’s hard to be humble and cocky at the same time, but Robert Downey, Jr. does it very well. Looking quite dapper in a dark suit and rose-colored tie on a recent Dave Letterman show. Downey was self-deprecating, with comments such as “you’ve come along way, baby” referring to his opening of The New York Stock Exchange that morning, modest, telling Dave that getting back to the U.S. and especially his show was the hit of his publicity trip…and meaning it, and arrogant, describing how he repeatedly balled up the script pages of his new movie, Iron Man, and threw them against the wall.

Now don’t get me wrong, he was charming, using a large and small action figure of himself from the film to illustrate the difference in height between him and co-star Gwyneth Paltrow. Funny stuff.

In the end, his matter-of-fact persona and dry sense of humor drew Dave and the audience in and made him a good guest who interacted well with the host and ultimately, made for a good interview… ego not withstanding.

George Clooney exuded star quality the moment he walked onto the Late Show set, looking like he had just stepped out of Ocean’s 14.  And while being George Clooney is something none of us can ever hope to achieve, there’s a lot to be learned by observing his high-wire balancing act as a talk show guest, striking the perfect balance between being A-list and accessible.

Clooney has the self-deprecating act down to a science, blending the “I wish I was a star like him” and a viewer’s desire to see the all too human side of the high-and-mighty.  Watching George and Dave pal around and share celeb stories, we think “Oh, I want to belong to THAT club!”

Clooney knows the trick to spinning a great story is to have it so well rehearsed that it never seems rehearsed.  He made it look like he just remembered the hilarious incident that happened when police helicopters swarmed neighbor Britney Spears’ house.  And he got plenty of plugs in for his new movie, Leatherheads, by telling funny stories that generously showcased the other actors, at his own expense.  His guest stint was a textbook example of how to look ridiculously cool while telling stories about appearing ridiculous.  Not so easy when you come to think about it.

Clooney secured the Perfect Guest title by giving Dave what ever talk show host craves: a bankable celebrity who not only charms the audience, but hangs around to do a comedy skit as well.  Dave said it best, “If everyone were like George Clooney, show business would be a much better place.”

Sometimes talk show appearances are bad on-camera lab experiments.  All the elements are in place, but the chemistry fails.  The charming and unaffected Kate Bosworth popped in on Letterman to plug her new flick 21, but somehow the vast bulk of her segment centered around another movie altogether.  (A publicist’s worst nightmare.)  She and Dave swapped gags about skydiving, followed by a clip of her first parachute venture, while in New Zealand, where she just shot The Laundry Warrior by a Korean director.  She then wandered through a story about wandering through NZ with her boyfriend.  The movie she was on the show to promote barely got a mention before she vanished into the commercial break.

How much of this lay on Kate’s shoulder is hard to tell.  She showed up lovely and lively, looking trimly gorgeous (fortunately still above her alarming waif weight of 2006.)  She made all the right moves, having fun with both Dave and Paul Shaffer and relating to both like old pals.  Yet the whole act felt stage managed, undercutting her natural appeal.  Even Dave seemed working from a shoehorned script, as though Kate’s handlers and the show’s producers had concluded the Las Vegas-based movie 21 couldn’t carry the segment.  She wove a brief story about being stranded in Vegas for six weeks, while co-star Kevin Spacey had fun across the state.  Surely after working with Spacey in three movies, there were more stories connected to the movie she was there to support.  But perhaps none she could tell.

It was far from terrible, yet less than anticipated.  We had terrific professionals out front, which is why The Guest Whisperer suspects the fumbles came from backstage.