Former Channel 7 showbiz reporter name drops worst celebrities to interview

Former Channel 7 showbiz reporter Nelson Aspen has exposed his nightmare celebrity encounters, naming and shaming the worst stars to interview.

Former Channel 7 showbiz reporter Nelson Aspen has named and shamed the worst celebrities he’s interviewed.

The Hollywood veteran, 61, who was an entertainment correspondent for Sunrise for two decades until stepping down in 2022, sat down with fellow showbiz reporter Kjersti Flaa on her YouTube show, where the duo discussed their many brushes with fame while working as journalists over the years.

Flaa is most famous for outing her “nightmare” Blake Lively encounter, which she went public with in August, prompting Aspen to share his own “combative” experience with Lively, 37.

Nelson Aspen joined fellow celeb interviewer Kjersti Flaa to talk about their worst A-list encounters.

Aspen said how his first interview with Lively to promote 2016’s The Shallows was “fun and playful”, adding how he was “gobsmacked” at what a “goddess” she was in real life. But he had a very different experience just two years later while chatting to Lively and her A Simple Favor co-star, Anna Kendrick.

“I’m figuring, ‘Oh this is going to be fun.’ I’d interviewed Anna before and she’s fine, but Blake? She’s going to be be a hoot, I can’t wait,” Aspen remembered.

“They were paired together, and I think that may have had something to do with it. She [Lively] could’ve been having a bad day, maybe they didn’t get along, maybe it was competition, maybe it was two egos trapped in the same room, maybe Blake is just better one-on-one … I don’t know, but she answered every question with a question, combatively.

“It was not pleasant, and Anna sort of did the same. It’s like she was like, ‘OK this is girl power, we’re going to be team up on the journalist.’

“And in your interview with Blake, I recognised it, this is a trait, obviously a recurring one,” he told Flaa.

“Thanks to you, everybody’s warned.”

Aspen said his interview with Blake Lively in 2018 wasn’t pleasant. Picture: Gotham/WireImage

Robert De Niro was among the worst, Aspen said. Picture: Pedro Gomes/Getty Images

Aspen added how Lively’s husband Ryan Reynolds became more conservative as his star rose, going from being “easygoing and goofy” in his earlier years to, more recently, being more rigid in interviews.

One of his most uncomfortable chats, he said, was with Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro.

Aspen claimed he’d been warned by a publicist that De Niro, 81, “won’t look you in the eyes.”

Lo and behold, when Aspen arrived for his filmed interview with the actor, he noticed his camera set-up was oddly positioned.

“The camera that was on me was off to a weird angle so that Robert never had to look me in the face,” Aspen said.

“He looked off camera, but when we cut it together it looked as if he was looking at me.

“They went to so much trouble to avoid him having to look at the journalist.”

Most surprisingly, Aspen said he didn’t have the greatest experience with Marvel star Paul Rudd, 55, considered to be one of the nicest guys in Hollywood.

Paul Rudd, one of Hollywood’s nicest guys, was seemingly having a bad day when Aspen interviewed him. Picture: John Lamparski/Getty Images

“He’s usually very sweet, but it was his birthday, and that’s when everybody was talking about ‘ageless Paul Rudd’,” Aspen said.

“They [publicists] said, ‘Don’t ask him about his youthful appearance, and don’t say Happy Birthday.’ I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

“Yes it was coming from the publicist, but he must have said, ‘I don’t want to talk about my birthday’.”

For the interview, Rudd was paired with his Avengers co-star Jeremy Renner, who Aspen claimed was “not always the most lighthearted fellow.”

“It all went south,” Aspen said. “I didn’t say something particularly about his birthday, I can’t remember exactly how it went down, but whatever it was they were very sensitive about it, and it was very uncomfortable and awkward, and nobody says that about Paul Rudd.

“But it happens, they’re people too.”

The tea didn’t end there. Aspen recalled his first time interviewing Reese Witherspoon for her 2007 film Rendition, in which she starred opposite Jake Gyllenhaal.

Aspen’s first interview with Reese Witherspoon in 2007 didn’t go too well.

At the time, Witherspoon had recently separated from her husband of seven years, Ryan Phillippe, and was rumoured to be dating Gyllenhaal.

“In the film, she played a mother, and so I asked her a question as a mother, I didn’t think that was particularly scandalous … And somewhere from the back in the dark, a voice comes, ‘Nelson move onto another question’,” Aspen said.

“I’m not TMZ digging around for dirt, I’m a nice guy, I’m a team player, so I tried again. And again, the voice in the background scolded me. I hate being scolded. I’m not a five-year-old.

“I finally gave up, I got up and left. You might get four minutes with Reese Witherspoon, I left after two.

“I would point out Reese and I made up for that rough start with several other interviews later where she couldn’t have been sweeter.”

Kevin Spacey and Stanley Tucci also both briefly made Aspen’s hit list.

In terms of his highlights, Aspen said Australian actor Hugh Jackman was one of the kindest stars in Hollywood, with Flaa agreeing the Wolverine actor was her “all time” favourite.

Aspen said Hugh Jackman was one of the best celebs to chat to.

“I’ve interviewed him a thousand times. He’s the best,” Aspen said.

“I remember several junkets, he had a coffee company called The Laughing Man Coffee Shop. He would arrange to have a barista show up and wisely put the barista in the waiting room with the journalists. And he’d be like, ‘Hey everyone, are you enjoying your coffee?’

“But it was very clever PR, because it makes him look great, it makes us love him more, and it makes the whole experience fun for everybody. I wish every celebrity could be like Hugh.”

Elsewhere, Hollywood legend Tom Cruise earned a glowing shout-out, with Aspen dubbing him a “master”.

“When Tom Cruise is looking at you, you are just putty in his hands,” Aspen said.

“He fixes you with those eyes and smile and you’re in the palm of his hands. He’s amazing.”

Meryl Streep and Julie Andrews were also among Aspen’s favourites.

Aspen further dishes about his many years working in Hollywood in his new novel, Dancing Between the Raindrops: The Hollywood Years, which is on sale now.