Samantha Armytage Reveals Her Worst-Ever Celebrity Interview

Samantha Armytage has named her most “difficult” celebrity interview: a 2009 conversation with Susan Sarandon.

The television presenter, who has nearly 30 years of journalism experience and has interviewed countless stars, discussed the encounter in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail.

Armytage spoke to Sarandon, 80, as the actress promoted her film The Lovely Bones.

“There were plenty of bad interviews. It’s live television,” she said. “But I think Susan Sarandon was probably my worst interview. She was a bit prickly.”

“She was promoting The Lovely Bones. It was a terribly sad movie, so it was difficult for her to promote and, I think, difficult for journalists to cover.”

“It was pretty sad and awful, and she was prickly. But when she returned to America after that trip, she announced that her relationship was over.”

In December 2009, Sarandon confirmed that she had separated from her long-term partner, Tim Robbins, after 23 years together.

The former couple share sons John “Jack” Henry Robbins, 37, and Miles Guthrie Robbins, 34. Sarandon also has a daughter, Eva Amurri, 41, with her former partner Franco Amurri.

“I think she had other stuff going on,” Armytage said of the interview.

“That’s the other thing you have to remember with celebrities: they have lives as well. Sometimes, when they’re prickly, there can be other reasons for it.

“But for the most part, I’ve had fun doing all those interviews.”

Armytage also revealed that her “best” celebrity interview was with Tom Cruise, after the Hollywood star unexpectedly announced on Sunrise in 2017 that Top Gun 2 was in development.

“I think the best was probably the Tom Cruise interview in the studio at Martin Place for Sunrise,” she recalled.

“I think he was promoting a Mission: Impossible movie, so we held a big Mission: Impossible day.”

“There was just a random question at the bottom of our script asking about Top Gun 2, which was such a roll of the dice.”

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“It wasn’t even something anyone knew was coming. At the end, I thought, ‘We’ve got Tom Cruise sitting here, so I’ll just throw this at him.’”

“He gave us a world scoop that Top Gun 2 was coming, and that was pretty amazing.”

Armytage said she could see the moment Cruise decided to reveal the news, allowing Sunrise to break the story that a new Top Gun film would soon begin filming.

‘When you’re sitting with someone like Tom Cruise that close and you can see into their eyes and how he sort of had a moment where he thought, “Should I tell? Am I going give these people a big scoop?”‘ she recalled. 

‘But he’s not stupid, he knows what he’s doing… So that stands out for me.’

Top Gun: Maverick was later released in 2022. 

‘There were so many fun and amazing interviews during those Sunrise years. We really made some big TV back then,’ she added.

It comes after the TV veteran recently started a new podcast called Act Two.

The weekly interview series launched on October 13 with actress Rebel Wilson as her first guest and cricketer Michael Clarke as her second.

‘It’s been liberating to a degree to start something in my own name and for myself,’ the Nine star said.

‘I have worked for big networks – commercial networks – for 28 years. It’s really liberating to do something for myself and run a business.

‘It does sort of shift the way that you operate. I’ve put so much hard work into Act Two because it is mine.’

Sam has already managed to land a huge sponsor, with upscale department store Myer signing on to support her latest venture.

‘Myer has come on board as a major sponsor. That’s really an exciting partnership. It means the show goes to another level now,’ she explained.

‘I’m in the process of chatting to other possible sponsors who are also huge iconic brands. So, from a business perspective, it’s really exciting.’