\u201cJoe Donnelly gravitates toward characters who have heart and portrays them with insight and humanity,\u201d writes the Atlantic<\/i>\u2019s Conor Friedersdorf.<\/p>\n As the book title suggests, L.A. Man<\/i> is as much about Donnelly as the stars he spotlights. And just as he has no qualms with reporting his subjects\u2019 shortcomings (he once facetiously asked Olivia Wilde why, as a vegetarian, she wasn\u2019t skinnier and told Christian Bale he didn\u2019t like his new movie), Donnelly freely exposes his own vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n So, when we invited Donnelly to interview himself, we knew he wouldn\u2019t pull any punches.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve said you hope this book could add to the canon of bathroom reads. Everyone knows you\u2019re an egomaniac; don\u2019t you think more highly of your work? <\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m glad you ask that, Joe. When I said that, it\u2019s precisely because I think so highly of my work. Let\u2019s be real, anyone who lives in a busy household knows the bathroom is a sanctuary. I\u2019ve done some of my best reading in there. What an honor if someone thinks this collection is worthy to occupy that precious space and time (it is!). Plus, I learned about narrative journalism and profiles by sneaking the sports pages off to the bathroom. Maybe someone can have the same experience with this book. It\u2019s gotta\u2019 be better for you than Instagram.<\/p>\n Despite the marquee names, half of the profiles focus on lesser-known subjects, like the epic story of redeemed outlaw Eddie Padilla. How\u2019d you pick whom to include? <\/strong><\/p>\n Well, I was fortunately limited by what was readily available on the Internet. I\u2019m old enough that a lot of my career predates the digital age and while there were some worthy nuggets from back in ye olden days, tracking those pieces down would have been more work than what I was getting paid for (which, so far, is nothing\u2009\u2014\u2009so buy the book!). Also, the digital era coincided with the lion\u2019s share of my Los Angeles\u2013based journalism career, so it\u2019s only natural that a certain amount of it would be based on the entertainment industry.<\/p>\n You use author\u2019s notes to provide context to a lot of the stories. What\u2019s a behind-the-scenes tidbit about the book? <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The hidden secret of some of these pieces is that I was driving around town in a battered, metallic blue, Ford F150 with a camper top. If anyone got a look at me, they would think I was a modern-day Beverly Hillbilly\u2009\u2014\u2009which won\u2019t surprise some of my Colgate contemporaries. It was not a cool ride in L.A. <\/span><\/p>\n In the Christian Bale piece, you say you\u2019d previously pledged to never do another celebrity interview. Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n I always think I\u2019m going to hate doing them. And celebrities can be boring. I got into journalism to write about the struggles of real people trying to live in an often-daunting world, not about Christian Bale\u2019s ability to lose or gain weight for different film roles. The celebrity thing became kind of a side-hustle that ended up just being the direction the horse was going in for a while. But I learned that these folks are real people too, with struggles and stories. If you show up and actually listen, you\u2019ll get to those stories and they can be illuminating, entertaining, and even inspiring.<\/p>\n Joe Donnelly ’86 has interviewed the stars and now written a book about his life as a journalist. Who better to interview him than himself?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1221,"featured_media":229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,63],"coauthors":[143,135],"class_list":["post-44","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-endeavor","tag-community","tag-gaming"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-I","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/09\/endeavor-donnelly.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":610,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions\/610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Cover](\"http:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/09\/endeavor-laman-207x300.jpg\")
Facts about Donnelly<\/h2>\n
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