Reported speech is used in an interview when you are summarising the conversation but also want to quote parts of what the interviewee said in their own words.
Read the following extract from an interview with actor Millie Bobby Brown. This interview is written using reported speech rather than a transcript.
When Vogue Met
Millie Bobby Brown … I ask her what she would wear, given the choice, she tells me that she went to dinner in a Pikachu onesie last night.
The pressing question, of course, is whether Brown will return for the second series of Stranger Things. When I ask her about the next step in her career she says that she’s ‘open-minded’ but solemnly reminds me that she’s ‘focusing on Stranger Things and Netfl ix right now’. Most revealingly of all, when I ask her about whether she’s planning to grow her hair out now, she says: ‘I don’t know if I’m growing it out just yet … To be honest I think if I do come back and I had to cut my hair again I’d be fi ne with it.’
Understand Rewrite the interview with Millie Bobby Brown in transcript form. Create
Work in pairs to come up with a list of potential interview questions that you could ask the following people:
a sporting hero a student running for class captain a librarian applying for a job in the school library a television personality the President of Ireland an astronaut.
